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TWO U.S JOURNALISTS SHOT IN UKRAINE, ONE DIED INSTANTLY

A journalist from the United States was shot dead on 13 March on the frontlines, with another injured; in the Ukrainian suburb of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, according to witnesses who spoke to AFP.

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A surgeon who was volunteering for the Ukrainian territorial defence, Dr Danylo Shapovalov, said that he had treated the injured American, with the other one dying instantly.

Reporters from AFP reportedly saw the deceased’s body.

Another third victim, a Ukrainian who was in the same vehicle as the Americans, was also injured, with the Russian forces being blamed by the Ukrainians for the shooting and death.

Dr Shapovalov spoke to AFP and said that the car they were in was shot at, and he provided first aid, with the deceased receiving a wound to the neck and dying straight away.

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The dead journalist has been identified at 50-year-old Brent Renaud from New York, a documentary photographer.

He was found with a New York Times identity card but New York Times has since explained that he wasn’t working for them at the time.

Deputy managing editor Cliff Levy, posted a tweet addressing his death:

Here is his Tweet

“We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death.

Brent was a talented photographer and filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years.

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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.

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.”

Tribute

Jeff Newton, believed to be a friend of the deceased American, posted a tribute to the fallen journalist on his Facebook page:

“It is with the most profound sadness to announce that my dear friend and brother Brent Renaud was killed by Russian forces today in Ukraine while reporting on the war there.

Juan Arredondo, a filmmaker and my former graduate advisee student at Columbia Journalism School, was also shot but is recovering after surgery.

Brent was a brilliant filmmaker. We worked in some insanely bad places together over the years, from months on end in Somalia, to witnessing the fight against ISIS in Iraq, to seeing ISIS’s attempted takeover of Libya.

We slept on boats together, in bunkers together, blown up school houses and in shady hotels. He always looked exhausted. Seldom smiled. There was an anxiousness behind those tired eyes.

What I saw in them was a man always trying to figure out “what next.” He never stopped working. He was consumed by telling people the honest truth behind the stories he covered.

He was fearless. You could not intimidate him. He cared deeply about the people he filmed.

If you wanted to know what he thought, you didn’t need to ask him. And he probably wouldn’t tell you, because that’s how he hid his grief and emotions.

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But you could find the answer in his films. He and his brother Craig found them everywhere. From economically challenged schools in Chicago to homeless shelters in New Orleans to battlefields far and wide.

He was an understated scholar and a reluctant hero of humanity. He won every award that mattered in broadcast journalism.

An Arkansas kid educated at Columbia U. and later at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow.

When he won his Nieman Fellowship he thanked me for a recommendation letter, as if my letter had even the slightest thing to do with it.

It cracked me up because sometimes I think he didn’t even know himself how talented he was. Beyond humble.

I’ll miss him more than I can put into words. My deepest sadness goes out to his family and those who loved him. You know who you are. Brent does, too.”

Images source: Andriy Nyebytov on Facebook and Jeff Newton on Facebook

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