Brent Renaud, an award-winning American journalist and filmmaker was according to officials in Kyiv, killed by Russian soldiers in the Ukrainian city of Irpin on Sunday.
Another American journalist has been injured, according to reports. It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.
Renaud, a 50-year-old male, was recognized by Kyiv area police in a tweet. As proof, police shared a photo of his body and his American passport, as well as a snapshot of Renaud’s name on an old New York Times press badge.
Head of the Kyiv region police Andriy Nebitov said in a Facebook post that Russian forces shot Renaud, adding that “the occupants cynically kill even journalists of international media, who’ve been trying to tell the truth about atrocities of Russian military in Ukraine.”
“Of course, journalism carries risks, but the US citizen Brent Renaud paid with his life for an attempt to shed light on how underhand, cruel, and merciless the aggressor is,” Nebitov added.
Nebitov said that two more journalists were injured, adding that “the injured have been already saved and moved to a hospital in the capital. What condition they are in is unknown at the moment.”
One of the wounded journalists is believed to be Colombian-American photographer Juan Arredondo, who is now in hospital, according to social media video and international media reports.
Social media footage has emerged of a journalist identified as Juan Arredondo at Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv, in which he describes being shot at by Russian forces while driving through a checkpoint in Irpin on the way to film refugees leaving the city.
“There was two of us, my friend Brent Renaud. And he’s been shot and left behind,” Arredondo said in the video, adding that Renaud was shot in the neck. “We got split and I got pulled into the [points to stretcher] …an ambulance, I don’t know.”
Arredondo, a filmmaker and visual journalist who is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted photos from Zhytomyr, Ukraine on Saturday, noting in an Instagram post that he is “#onassignment.”
The Dean of Columbia Journalism School, Steve Coll, told CNN: “We don’t have any independent information about his injuries at this time but are working now to learn more and to see if we can help.”
Arredondo is a 2019 Harvard Nieman fellow. He has previously had his photography featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, ESPN, Vanity Fair, and other media outlets, according to his personal website bio.
An adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, said in a statement on Telegram that Renaud “paid with his life for attempting to expose the insidiousness, cruelty and ruthlessness of the aggressor.”
CNN has been unable to verify which media outlet the American journalists were working for in Ukraine. Police did not name the injured journalist.
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