According to Andriy NEBOTOV, head of Kyiv’s regional police force, Brent Renaud was a 50-year old filmmaker who was shot by Russian troops. Nebytov uploaded a graphic image of Renaud’s corpse on Facebook. Also, Nebytov included photos of Renaud’s American passport and credentials as a media professional issued by The New York Times.
According to a spokeswoman from the Times, Renaud is “a talented filmmaker who has contributed to The New York Times over time,” most recently in 2015. However, he was not assigned to any desk at The Times in Ukraine. TIME released a statement Sunday to confirm that Renaud was “in the region” working on a TIME Studios project focusing on the global refugee crisis.
According to local reports, Juan Arredondo, a documentary filmmaker was hurt in the attack. A video uploaded by a spokeswoman at a Kyiv public hospital shows Arredondo being treated. Arredondo was lying on a hospital bed and Renaud said that they were filming people leaving Kyiv.
“Someone offered to take us to another bridge. We crossed a checkpoint and they began shooting at us. The driver turned around and continued shooting at us, two. Arredondo, a fellow American, said that Brent Renaud is my friend and had been shot and left behind. “I saw him getting shot in the neck and we split and I was pulled.”
In a statement released later Sunday by the State Department, Renaud’s funeral was confirmed. It stated that it would offer all consular assistance to his family.
A spokesperson for the family said, “We offer our sincerest condolences and sympathy to his family on this loss.”
According to an automated translation of his Facebook posting, Nebytov, chief of the Kyiv Police, stated that Renaud had “paid [with] life for trying to highlight aggressor’s ingenuity and cruelty.”
According to their biography, Renaud and Craig Renaud have covered a variety of hotspots around the world over the past 20 years, including Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2015, the pair won the Peabody Award for an eight-part documentary that Vice News produced about a Chicago school for students with severe emotional problems.
Jake Sullivan, White House national security advisor, called Renaud’s death “shocking” and “horrifying” told “Face the Nation” Sunday that the U.S. would impose “appropriate sanctions” on Russia for the killing.
“I will only say that this is part of what has been a brazen aggressive on the part Russians where they’ve targeted civilians. They have also targeted hospitals. They have targeted places to worship, and they have even targeted journalists,” Sullivan stated.
