Born in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine),[2] Protsyuk was based and lived in Warsaw (Poland) since 1999[2] and worked as a cameraman for Reuters since 1993.

[3] During his career he covered the conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and made news reports about Poland.

[2] Protsyuk is survived by his wife and an eight-year-old son,[4] the family had moved from Kyiv to Warsaw in 1999.

Protsyuk was filming from a balcony of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where most of the foreign journalists were staying, when a shell fired by a U.S. M1 Abrams tank killed him and José Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television station Telecinco.

[5] Hundreds, including politicians and public figures, attended his funeral in Kyiv on April 13,[4] and the Ukrainian parliament observed a minute of silence in his memory.