US journalist Brent Renaud killed in Ukraine

American journalist Brent Renaud was shot and killed near the front line of the war in Ukraine, drawing condemnation from the White House and tributes from colleagues.

An American journalist was shot and killed near the front line of the war in Ukraine, foreign press and local police said Sunday, drawing condemnation from the White House and tributes from his former colleagues.

The journalist was identified as Brent Renaud, 50 years old, an award-winning documentary filmmaker from Arkansas.

Andrey Nebitov, a police official in the Kyiv region, posted photos on Facebook of Mr. Renaud’s body and identification documents, including a passport and New York Times press badge, though a Times spokeswoman said he wasn’t currently on assignment for the newspaper.

In accompanying posts, Mr. Nebitov blamed the killing on Russian troops and said two other correspondents were injured and taken to a hospital in the Ukrainian capital for treatment.

Agence France-Presse reported that its journalists in Irpin, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, saw Mr. Renaud’s body.

One of the wounded journalists has been identified as American photographer Juan Arredondo. In an Instagram video posted by a public-relations official from the hospital, Mr. Arredondo, lying on a gurney with an emergency blanket over him, gave a brief account of the incident.

🔴🔴 Two American journalist shot by Russian at Irpin bridge. One is under surgery at the main hospital in Kyiv and the other was shot at the neck. pic.twitter.com/9lihX1JJ58

— annalisa camilli (@annalisacamilli) March 13, 2022

“We crossed the first bridge in Irpin,” Mr. Arredondo said. “We were going to film all the refugees leaving, and we got into a car. Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge. We crossed a checkpoint, and they started shooting at us. So the driver turned around, and they kept shooting. It was two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind.”

“He had been shot in the neck, and we got split,” Mr. Arredondo said in the video, which was verified by Storyful, a social-media research firm owned by News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan called the killing “obviously shocking and horrifying” in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “I will be consulting with my colleagues, we’ll be consulting with the Ukrainians, to determine how this happened and then to measure and execute appropriate consequences as a result of it,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Mr. Renaud was in Ukraine working on a project on the global refugee crisis for Time Studios, according to a statement from Time Editor in Chief Edward Felsenthal and Time Studios head Ian Orefice.

“Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones,” they said. “It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.” A New York Times spokeswoman said in an email that the newspaper was “deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death.

She added that Mr. Renaud had most recently contributed to the Times in 2015. Mr. Renaud and his brother, Craig, won a 2014 Peabody Award for a Vice News documentary on a Chicago school serving at-risk students. The two brothers’ website provided no update on the incident in Ukraine, and an email to their contact address wasn’t immediately answered.

“Our Nieman Fellow Brent Renaud was gifted and kind, and his work was infused with humanity,” Ann Marie Lipinski, the curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, said on Twitter. “He was killed today outside Kyiv, and the world and journalism are lesser for it. We are heartsick.”

Joshua Jamerson contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal