A series of reports Sunday state award-winning American photojournalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud has been killed in Ukraine.
The New York Times said Renaud was shot dead in Irpin, near Kyiv, by Russian forces. The outlet quoted Kyiv’s police chief Andriy Nebytov.
It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.
Cliff Levy, deputy managing editor at the Times confirmed Renaud was not on assignment for the outlet at the time, although he had previously worked for it.
A statement from the paper said:
We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death. Brent was a talented photographer and film-maker who had contributed to the New York Times over the years.
Though he had contributed to the Times in the past (most recently in 2015), he was not on assignment for any desk at the Times in Ukraine.
Early reports that he worked for the Times circulated because he was wearing a Times press badge that had been issued for an assignment many years ago.
Renaud, 50, had worked for a number of American news and media organizations in the past, including HBO, NBC and the Times.
He usually worked alongside his brother, Craig Renaud, but it is not known if they were both in Ukraine.
Directors Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud pose with their award The 74th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on May 31, 2015 in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Peabody Awards)
The brothers have worked in several war and conflict zones over the years, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya.
The Ukrainian authorities said he was killed in a suburb that has been the site of intense shelling by Russian forces in recent days, but the details of his death were not immediately clear, the Times added.
Another U.S. journalist who survived the attack spoke to a reporter for Italian paper Internazionale from the hospital, the Daily Mail reports.
Juan Arredondo said Renaud had been shot in the neck and “had to be left behind.” He outlined:
We had crossed the first bridge in Irpin. We were going to film other refugees leaving we got into a car. Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge. We crossed a checkpoint and they started shooting at us. The driver turned around, there were two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud. He has been shot and left behind. I saw he has been shot in the neck. We got split.
The White House has not yet commented on Renaud’s death but National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called it ‘shocking and horrifying.’ He said the U.S. would consult with Ukrainian officials about what to do next.
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.”
Renaud’s death comes less than two weeks after Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Skaum, a camera operator for the Ukrainian television channel LIVE, was killed when a TV transmission tower in Kviv was hit by shelling.
More to come…