According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the Russian forces targeted an award-winning U.S. journalist and filmmaker, Brent Renaud, on Sunday. Renaud was reporting in the neighborhood of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Previously, he worked for several American news and media organizations, including the New York Times, HBO, and NBC.

Russian forces killed an award-winning U.S. journalist and filmmaker, Brent Renaud, during their aggression in the Ukrainian city of Irpin. Another American journalist, Juan Arredondo, was wounded amid the attack. pic.twitter.com/nauLJyOTRQ

— Live News Now (@LiveNewsNow6) March 14, 2022

The Ukrainian officials said that Renaud, 50, was killed in Irpin, a city that recently faced intense Russian shelling. However, his death details were not immediately clear. Additionally, another journalist was wounded in those attacks. According to Time executives’ statement, Renaud was on duty for Time Studios and was working on a project aimed at the worldwide refugee crisis at his death time.

An adviser to the interior minister of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchencko, stated that Renaud paid with his life to expose the aggression’s brutality, callousness, and insidiousness. During past years, most recently in 2015, Renaud worked for The Times, but he was not on assignment for the company in Ukraine. Initial reports circulated that he was working for the Times in Ukraine because his dead body was found with a Times press badge but issued a task years ago.

Renaud Covered Iraq and Afghan War

A spokeswoman for The Times, Danielle Rhoades, expressed deep sadness from the media agency on the death news of Brent Renaud. However, she added that he was a talented filmmaker. Furthermore, the journalist usually worked with his brother, Craig Renaud, and won a Peabody award for a 2014 documentary of Vice News, Last Chance High, about schools in Chicago. Both worked on film and TV projects worldwide from hot spots and conflict zones.

During the last ten years, both brothers covered the Afghan and Iraq wars, cartel Mexican violence, youth refugees in Central America, and the deadly earthquake in Haiti. Moreover, from 2018 t0 2019, Renaud was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Cambridge.

The death of Renaud comes less than fifteen days after Yevhenii Skaum, a Ukrainian journalist who worked as a camera operator for Ukraine’s TV channel LIVE, was killed when a television transmission tower in Kyiv was hit by Russian shelling. After some days, a U.K. journalist covering the Ukraine war shot and wounded after coming under intense bombardment in Kyiv.

Worldwide Tributes to Renaud

On Sunday, the Custodian of the Nieman Foundation, Ann Marie Lipinski, tweeted that Renaud was kind and gifted, and his work inspired humanity. Further, she said that journalism and the world are lesser for it. Renaud was shot outside Kyiv, and journalism and the world are lesser for it. She also retweeted her 2018 tweet in which she shared a link to his work in Afghanistan.

Our Nieman Fellow Brent Renaud was gifted and kind, and his work was infused with humanity. He was killed today outside Kiev, and the world and journalism are lesser for it. We are heartsick. https://t.co/ZbQWAtiGp4

— Ann Marie Lipinski (@AMLwhere) March 13, 2022

A colleague and friend of Renaud, Christof Putzel, told CNN that his death was a shocking loss for journalism. He also said that he woke up early in the morning to the devastating death news of his long-time best friend, the best war journalist and incredible colleague. Putzel added that Renaud had the ability to go anywhere, listen and speak what was happening to the public and get any story.

Further, he said that Renaud was working on a documentary to cover issues regarding refugees globally when the Ukraine crisis started. The next day Brent covered the dilemma of refugees traveling from Kyiv to Poland. Some years ago, the pair won a duPont–Columbia University Award for an exclusive story that aimed at smuggled guns into Mexico from the U.S.

The Time magazine told CNN that Renaud was in Ukraine to work on a project of a Time Studios focused on the international refugee crisis. In addition, the publican said that it is essential that journalists can work safely to cover this current humanitarian crisis and the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

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