US journalist Brent Renaud killed by Russian forces in Irpin, Ukraine
An award-winning American filmmaker and journalist, Brent Renaud was killed in Ukraine yesterday while reporting in a suburb of the capital, Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.
The 50-year-old filmmaker was killed when Russian troops opened fire, according to Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force.
Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.
It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.
One of the injured journalists, Juan Arredondo, told an Italian reporter he had been with Renaud when they came under fire.
“Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge, and we crossed a checkpoint, and they started shooting at us. So, the driver turned around, and they kept shooting, two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind,” said Arredondo, who is also American. “I saw him being shot in the neck, and we got split, and I got pulled.”
Renaud had worked for a number of American news and media organisations in the past, including HBO, NBC and The New York Times.
At the time of his death Renaud was on assignment for Time Studios working on a “project focused on the global refugee crisis,” according to a statement from Time executives.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said in a statement that Renaud “paid with his life for attempting to expose the insidiousness, cruelty and ruthlessness of the aggressor.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called reports of Renaud’s death “shocking and horrifying,” telling “Face the Nation” yesterday that the US and its allies would impose “appropriate consequences” against Russia for the killing.
“I will just say that this is part and parcel of what has been a brazen aggression on the part of the Russians where they have targeted civilians, they have targeted hospitals, they have targeted places of worship and they have targeted journalists,” Sullivan said.
