Citing UN data, top independent rights experts on Wednesday said seven journalists had been killed in Ukraine while many had been facing unprecedented danger and even targeted while performing their work.

According to the report, cited by the experts, journalists have been tortured, kidnapped, attacked and killed, or refused safe passage from cities and regions under siege.

Latest UN data indicates that seven journalists have been confirmed killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24; the last time so many media professionals lost their lives in Ukraine, was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

The rights experts, in a statement, said Russia’s war against Ukraine had been made easier by the “silencing of critical voices…over a prolonged period of time’’.

They pointed to the blocking of social media platforms and news websites in Russia, and the disruption of foreign media services.