An award-winning journalist who was a former New York Times contributor has been killed by Russian forces near Kyiv, the region’s head of police said Sunday, reports New York Post.
Brent Renaud, 51, a video journalist, was fatally shot when Russian troops opened fire on a car near the Romanivsky Bridge in Irpin, police said.
“The occupants cynical [sic] kill even journalists of the international media who try to show the truth about the inaction of Russian troops in Ukraine,” Kyiv Chief of Police Andrey Nebitov wrote on Facebook.
“Of course, the profession of a journalist is a risk, but US citizen Brent Renaud paid his life for trying to highlight the aggressor’s ingenuity, cruelty and ruthlessness,” he continued.
Two other journalists were also injured in the attack and taken to the hospital, Nebitov said.
Nebitov shared a video of a police officer at the scene with a bloodied man’s body.
The attack comes as Irpin has been the target of heavy shelling by Russian forces.
The New York Times issued a statement about Reanud’s death Sunday.
“We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death. Brent was a talented filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years,” a New York Times spokesperson told The Post.
“We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death,” the New York Times said.
Though he was initially identified as a New York Times journalist, he had not been on assignment for the newspaper at the time of his death, the spokesperson said.
“Early reports that he worked for Times circulated because he was wearing a Times press badge that had been issued for an assignment many years ago,” the spokesperson said.
Renaud has won a Peabody Award for his work alongside his brother, Craig, according to the bio on his website. The brothers have worked on documentary projects for their company, the Renaud Brothers, from Iran, Afghanistan, Haiti, Egypt, Libya and Mosul.