Kiev - Murdered Russian journalist, Anastasia Baburova, was buried in Ukraine on Monday, with family and friends attending a ceremony in the city of Sevastopol.

Unknown assailants gunned down Baburova in Moscow a week ago as she attempted to prevent the shooting of an associate, Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov.

Markelov died immediately in the apparent contract hit. Baburova was shot while attempting to apprehend one of his attackers, and died hours later in a Moscow hospital.

Ukrainian police presence was heavy at the funeral in the Black Sea port city in Ukraine's ethnically-Russian Crimean peninsula.

Baburova, 25, had been a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's few independent publications. She was the fourth employee of the newspaper to have been killed since 2000.

Anna Politkovskaya, another Novaya Gazeta reporter, died in Moscow in a contract hit in 2006. She had been a leading critic of the Russian government's hardline policies in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim district in Russia's Caucasus region.

Shortly before his death, Markelov had given a press conference in Moscow on human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Russia's leaders following both Politkovskaya's and Baburova's deaths, condemned the killings, and promised a full-scale hunt for the murderers. (dpa)