Russian troops have killed an American journalist – Brent Renaud after opening fire on his car in Kyiv.
Gatekeepers News reports that Renaud and his colleague came under fire in Irpin, about 10km (6 miles) northwest of the capital, Kyiv.
The Kyiv police force while confirming this in a statement on Sunday said the injured journalist was taken to a hospital in Kyiv.
The adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Anton Herashchenko, also confirmed the incident on a Telegram channel.
There was, however, no immediate comment from the Russian authorities.
The journalist who is being treated at the hospital, Juan Arredondo said he and a colleague were shot after they were stopped at a checkpoint just after a bridge in Irpin.
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.
Camilli told The Associated Press news agency that she was at the hospital when Arredondo arrived, adding that he had been wounded, hit in the lower back when stopped at a Russian checkpoint.
According to Camilli, Arredondo and Renaud were filming refugees fleeing the area when they were shot at while in a car approaching a checkpoint. Arredondo noted that the driver turned around but the firing at them continued.
Arredondo said an ambulance took him to the hospital and that Renaud was “left behind”.
In response to this, the New York Times while responding to this said Renaud had previously worked for it but had not been on assignment for the Times in Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the paper while naming the journalist thought to have been killed, wrote on Twitter, “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.”
“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.”
Meanwhile, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News that the United States government would be consulting with the Ukrainians to determine how this happened and would then “execute appropriate consequences”.
“This is part and parcel of what has been a brazen aggression on the part of the Russians, where they have targeted civilians, they have targeted hospitals, they have targeted places of worship, and they have targeted journalists,” Sullivan said.
