An American journalist was shot dead and another wounded on Sunday in Irpin, a frontline northwest suburb of Kyiv, medics and witnesses told The Associated Press. A US journalist being treated at a hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv said that he and a US colleague were shot after they were stopped at a checkpoint just after a bridge in Irpin, a town near Kyiv.
US journalist Juan Arredondo told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli in an interview from the hospital before being taken for surgery that the colleague who was with him was hit in the neck and remained on the ground earlier on Sunday.
Reports further noted that papers found on the American reporter's body identified him as 50-year-old video documentary shooter Brent Renaud, of New York. A New York Times identity card was among the papers, leading to reports he worked for the paper, but the US daily said he was not working for it at the time of his death.
New York Times deputy managing editor Cliff Levy tweeted, "Brent was a talented photographer and filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years. Though he had contributed to The Times in the past (most recently in 2015), he was not on assignment for any desk at The Times in Ukraine."
Arredondo told Camilli they were filming refugees fleeing the area when they were shot at while in a car approaching a checkpoint. The driver turned around but the firing at them continued, Arredondo added.
A statement from Kyiv regional police said that Russian troops opened fire on the car, and that one journalist died. Arredondo said that an ambulance brought him to the hospital and that Renaud was “left behind.”
Camilli told The Associated Press that she was at the hospital when Arredondo arrived and that Arredondo had himself had been wounded, hit in the lower back when stopped at a Russian checkpoint.
Danylo Shapovalov, a surgeon volunteering for the Ukrainian territorial defence, said one of the Americans died instantly and he had treated the other.
AFP reporters in Irpin saw the body of the victim. A third victim, a Ukrainian who had been in the same car as the Americans, was also wounded. Ukrainian officials were quick to blame Russian forces for the shooting but the exact circumstances were unclear.
(With inputs from agencies)
