Former ABC News producer killed in Russian drone strike in Ukraine

Maksym “Max” Oseredchuk, a former ABC News producer who helped journalists move across Ukraine’s front lines, was killed in a Russian drone strike on Wednesday night, June 25, 2026, while serving in Ukraine’s military. He was 30. He is survived by his wife, Kateryna, and their baby daughter, Maria.

Oseredchuk’s death marked the end of a path that ran from newsroom support work to active military service, a progression that has become increasingly visible in Ukraine’s war. ABC News identified him as one of its own and said he had become a key part of its Ukraine team after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, working from Kyiv to help crews reach hard-to-access frontline areas and keep them safe in a dangerous reporting environment.

He was born on November 4, 1995, in Vuhledar, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a city that was almost entirely destroyed and has been occupied by Russia since early 2023. His family’s apartment there was destroyed when Russian forces seized the city. Before joining ABC News work, he earned a master’s degree in business economics from the University of Vinnytsia and worked for several years as a logistics manager, building the kind of practical skills that later made him invaluable to visiting journalists.

ABC News said Oseredchuk followed in the footsteps of his father, Sasha, who also works as a driver for international media. That family connection placed him inside the machinery of war reporting long before he took up military service himself. He was part of the network’s Ukraine operation at a time when the boundary between documenting the war and being consumed by it had narrowed to almost nothing.

His death reflects that collapse with brutal clarity. In Ukraine, the people who once carried cameras, drove convoys, translated interviews and guided foreign crews through shelling now face the same drones, artillery and occupation they spent years helping others describe. Oseredchuk’s life moved through those roles one after another, and his killing showed how thoroughly the war has pulled civilians, media workers and soldiers into the same line of fire.