Zelensky to family of slain U.S. journalist: ‘The people of Ukraine ... are mourning with you’

“The people of Ukraine, who are fighting against the Russian regime to defend their Homeland and democracy in the world, are mourning with you,” he wrote.

Renaud, a 50-year-old, award-winning journalist and documentarian from Little Rock, was shot Sunday in his car while at a checkpoint in Irpin, a besieged suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. He was the second journalist killed in the conflict, as confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, highlighting the dangers of wartime reporting.

Benjamin Hall, a journalist for Fox News who covers the U.S. State Department, was injured Monday while reporting near Kyiv. In a statement, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said Hall is hospitalized and that his condition unknown. “This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone,” she said.

Fox news journalist Benjamin Hall injured while reporting in Ukraine

Another American journalist, who said he was in a car with Renaud when the two were shot at near a military checkpoint, was hurt and transported to a Kyiv hospital. Juan Arredondo told Italian news outlet Internazionale from the hospital that Renaud was “shot in the neck” and “left behind.”

Arredondo said he and Renaud were headed to film people evacuating Irpin when someone offered to drive them to a bridge used by refugees. “We crossed the checkpoint and they start shooting at us,” he told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli. “The driver turned around, and they kept shooting.”

The circumstances surrounding the incident could not be independently verified. Kyiv regional police chief Andriy Nebitov blamed the shooting on Russian forces.

Nebitov said on Facebook that journalism is risky but that Renaud paid with his life for trying to show the “cruelty and ruthlessness” of the Russian invaders.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put particular pressure on domestic and international news organizations, which have had to weigh the safety of their journalists against the need to cover events on the ground. The New York Times last week became the first major American news organization to announce it will pull its staff out of Russia in response to the country’s increasing crackdown on journalism.

Matthew Chance, one of CNN’s star Ukraine correspondents, gets a break

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday that Renaud’s death was “shocking and horrifying.” Without mentioning Renaud by name, Sullivan said, “We’ll be consulting with the Ukrainians to determine how this happened and then to measure and execute appropriate consequences as a result of it.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked Monday how the Biden administration would respond to the death of Renaud. “In terms of next steps or what the next consequence would be, I don’t have anything to preview for you at this point in time,” she said.

Renaud’s death prompted an outpouring of grief and outrage among his friends, colleagues and free-press advocacy organizations.

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

Renaud was an award-winning journalist and documentarian who filmed in conflict zones around the world. He was remembered by those who knew him as an empathetic and courageous person who risked his life over and over to report on veterans, migrants and drug addicts — vulnerable people whose stories he told with candor and, always, an eye for truth, his friend and colleague Christof Putzel told The Post on Sunday.

“It’s such a loss, not just for me, his family, but it’s a loss to our profession,” he said.

Renaud had an “innate humanity and empathy that allowed him to connect with people,” Putzel 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.”

Renaud was reporting on the global refugee crisis for Time Studios when he was killed, according to a statement from Edward Felsenthal, Time magazine’s editor in chief and CEO. “Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones,” Felsenthal said. “It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

New York Times pulls journalists from Russia amid media crackdown

A tribute to Renaud’s work published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where he was a fellow in 2019, states that “if there’s even a single thing about Sunday that makes any sense, it’s that Brent Renaud died telling the stories of people caught up in some of humanity’s darkest situations.”

Zelensky also praised Renaud’s “courage and determination” on Monday. “He traveled to the most dangerous war zones to film the unprecedented truthfulness and evil, also inflicted upon our nation by the aggressor state,” the Ukrainian leader wrote in his letter.

“May Brent’s life, service and sacrifice inspire generations of people all around the world to stand up in fight for the forces of light against the forces of darkness.”

Jeremy Barr contributed to this report.…