American journalist Brent Renaud was killed Sunday in Ukraine while covering the human toll of Russian aggression, multiple news outlets reported Sunday, citing Kyiv regional police.
Renaud, in his early 50s, was shot in Irpin, near Kyiv, near a checkpoint, another journalist with Renaud at the time, Juan Arredondo, told the Associated Press.
Arredondo said he and Renaud were filming refugees fleeing when they were shot. “The driver turned around but the firing at them continued,” the AP reported.
Arredondo said he was transported by ambulance to a hospital, where he gave an interview to Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli before being taken away for surgery. Renaud was “left behind,” Arredondo said, the AP reported.
Local police said Renaud was wearing a New York Times press badge. However, he was not working for the newspaper at the time of his death, a Times spokesperson told the AP, calling him a “talented filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years.”
The U.S. will consult with the Ukrainians to determine details surrounding the situation and “execute appropriate consequences,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News, the AP reported.
“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.
Renaud won a Peabody Award in 2015 with his brother for a documentary about a school for at-risk students in Chicago. According to a website owned by him and his brother, Renaud lived and worked in New York City and Little Rock, Ark., and have spent a decade telling human stories from the world’s hot spots.
