U.S. journalist killed in Ukraine was known for his ‘innate humanity and empathy’

Nebitov and an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister both shared photos of Renaud’s press badge and passport.

Renaud was carrying a New York Times press badge, Nebitov said, but the New York Times issued a statement on Twitter saying that although Renaud had worked with the Times in previous years, most recently in 2015, he was “not on assignment for any desk at The Times in Ukraine.”

“We are deeply saddened to hear of Brent Renaud’s death,” said Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha, the newspaper reported. “Brent was a talented filmmaker.”

Renaud, 51, worked with his brother, Craig Renaud, on award-winning video journalism and documentary filmmaking projects for HBO, Vice and other major international news organizations, according to their website.

They won a Peabody award for a Vice News documentary about a school in Chicago, among several other accolades in the media industry, including two Overseas Press Club awards and two duPont-Columbia University awards.

The two have worked in conflict zones and dangerous spots around the world covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, cartel violence in Mexico, political upheaval in Egypt, and the war on extremism in Africa and the Middle East, according to their website.

A second journalist, Juan Arredondo, was with Renaud in Irpin when the two came under fire after passing a military checkpoint, according to a video interview Arredondo did with Italian news outlet Internazionale while being treated in a Kyiv hospital.

A video taken by a reporter with Bild, a German newspaper, who was at the scene showed Arredondo being evacuated from the area by Ukrainian medics on a stretcher while holding his camera tight to his chest.

Arredondo said Renaud “has been shot and left behind,” but he wasn’t sure what had happened to him. Ukrainian officials blamed the killing on Russian troops.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said on Facebook that a journalist was “shot in the head” in Irpin and her office plans to investigate the case. She did not name Renaud, but posted a photo of the New York Times press badge with his picture and name cut off.

“I believe that we will bring the murderers to justice, but we will not return the life of your citizen. All the other citizens too. Unfortunately,” she wrote.

On Sunday, fellow journalists and relatives lamented the killing of Renaud, while underscoring the dangers journalists often undertake to report on the news around the world.

Christof Putzel, an independent journalist and filmmaker who has known Renaud for over 15 years and worked with him in Mexico, Iraq and Egypt, said Renaud was working on a project about refugees around the world when he was killed by Russian forces.

“It’s such a loss, not just for me, his family, but it’s a loss to our profession,” he said in an interview Sunday, pointing to Renaud’s “innate humanity and empathy that allowed him to connect with people” that Putzel said set his work apart.

“He had a way of getting anybody comfortable, and to trust him enough to talk to him,” he told The Washington Post. “He was the best our profession had.”

Renaud was in the journalism club and ran the newspaper at his high school, said Nan Renaud, 83, who was married to his father 30 years ago. She described him as extremely talented and deeply committed to his work.

“Brent would go anywhere, anytime, to do what he does,” she said. On Sunday, her son, Renaud’s former stepbrother, texted the family a Twitter thread reporting Brent’s death. She called the news “awful, awful.”

Renaud grew up in Arkansas and began his career his career covering the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan, according to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where he was a fellow in 2019.

Ann Marie Lipinski, a curator at the Nieman Foundation, described him as a “gifted and kind” and whose work “was infused with humanity.”

“He was killed today outside Kiev and the world and journalism are lesser for it,” she wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “We are heartsick.”

Cliff Levy, deputy managing editor at the New York Times, wrote on Twitter that “brave journalists like Brent take tremendous risks to bear witness and to tell the world about the devastation and suffering caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Renaud’s death comes after a team of Sky News journalists were shot at while attempting to report in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and camera operator Richie Mockler were shot. They survived and were evacuated out of the country. The journalists were later told that the gunmen were part of a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad.

On March 1, when the Russian military fired on the Kyiv TV tower, camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was one of the five people killed in the attack, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Renaud is believed to be the second journalist killed in Ukraine.

Carlos Martinez de la Serna, program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned Renaud’s killing and urged Russian forces to “stop all violence against journalists and other civilians at once.”

“We are shocked and saddened to learn of the death of U.S. journalist Brent Renaud in Ukraine. This kind of attack is totally unacceptable, and is a violation of international law,” he said in a statement, adding that whoever killed Renaud “should be held to account.”

According to CPJ, 14 journalists have been killed in Ukraine since 1995 while working on assignment.

But regardless of the multiple challenges international journalists face, it was Renaud’s commitment to the profession and the stories of the people he met that compelled him to travel the world and undertake such risks, Putzel, his friend and former correspondent for Al Jazeera said.

“Nothing was more important to him than the truth and the story and that is why he put his life on the line constantly,” Putzel said. “He cared that much.”