An acclaimed United States reporter and filmmaker has actually passed away in northern Ukraine after he was fatally shot in the neck by Russian forces in Irpin, near Kyiv, earlier today.
Brent Renaud was killed and two other reporters were wounded and rushed to hospital, according to Kyiv regional police chief Andrey Nebitov, who shared a photograph of what appeared to be Mr Renaud’s press credentials issued by The New York Times.
The 50-year-old was in a car with other foreign members of the press when Russian troops opened fire on the vehicle, reports say.
Fighting in Irpin has intensified in recent days as Vladimir Putin’s troops attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital.
A video released on Twitter by the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) showed Mr Renaud’s colleague on a stretcher in the hospital, describing the horrifying ambush.
‘We are across the first bridge in Irpin, we were going to film refugees leaving’, the colleague explains.
‘We got into a car as someone offered to take us to the other bridge and we crossed the checkpoint and they started shooting at us.
‘So, the driver turned around but they kept shooting. There was two of us, my friend is Brent Renaud and he has been shot and left behind. He got shot in the neck. We got split.’
When Mr Renaud’s associate was talked to, he was still uninformed of his pal’s death, which was later on validated by Verkhovna Rada and witnesses.
In a declaration on Twitter, PBS foreign reporter Jane Ferguson stated: ‘Just left roadside area near Irpin where body of American reporter Brent Renaud lay under a blanket.
‘Ukranian medics might not do anything to assist him by that phase. Outraged Ukranian policeman: “Tell America, tell the world, what they did to a journalist”.’
A picture shared online, whichMetro co.uk has actually selected not to release, programs Mr Renaud’s bloodied body partly covered under a blanket.
Cliff Levy, deputy handling editor at the New York Times, stated the paper was ‘deeply saddened’ by his death however validated he was not on project for the New York Times at the time.
A declaration launched by the paper read: ‘We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’ s death.
‘Brent was a skilled filmmaker who had actually added to The New York Times for many years.
‘Though he had actually added to The Times in the past (most just recently in 2015), he was not on project for any desk at the The Times in Ukraine.
‘Early reports that he worked for Times circulated because he was wearing a Times press badge that he had been issued for an assignment many years ago.’
Tributes have actually gathered for Mr Renaud, with his associates explaining him as a ‘filmmaker without parallel’ and a ‘talented photographer’.
He had actually worked for a variety of American news and media companies in the past, consisting of HBO, NBC and The New York Times, and was a Peabody and DuPont Award winning filmmaker,
In the last 20 years, he had actually been producing movies and tv programs with his bro Craig, concentrating on hot-spots like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Get in touch with our news group by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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