March 15 (UPI) — An attack on a Fox News camera crew traveling near Kyiv left two journalists dead, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense announced Tuesday.
The attack killed Irish national, London-based Pierre Zakrzewski, a Fox News cameraman, and Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a Ukrainian journalist and producer.
Fox News journalist Benjamin Hall was also injured by the incoming fire and was hospitalized. The Ukrainian military said he “lost part of his leg.”
The three journalists were traveling in a car Monday when the fire hit them in the town of Horenka, outside Kyiv, Fox News reported. Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko posted on Telegram that Russian forces fired mortars at the vehicle.
“The truth is the target,” the Ministry of Defense tweeted.
Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott announced Zakrzewski’s death Tuesday, calling the cameraman “beloved.”
“Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us,” she said. “His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.”
She said he had been working in Ukraine since February, coinciding with Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of the country.
“His talents were vast and there wasn’t a role that he didn’t jump in to help with in the field — from photographer to engineer to editor to producer — and he did it all under immense pressure, with tremendous skill,” Scott said.
Gulnoza Said, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said the organization was “deeply saddened” by Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova’s deaths.
“Reporting on this war is a vital public service, and it has already claimed the lives of at least two other journalists in just a few weeks. Ukrainian and Russian authorities must do their utmost to ensure safety of all journalists, and to thoroughly investigate attacks on the press,” Said said.
Svyatoslav Yurash, who previously worked as a fixer for Fox News, told the CPJ that the vehicle the team traveled in was clearly labeled “press.”
Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova’s deaths come one day after American video journalist and documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed in Ukraine. He came under heavy gunfire and shelling from Russian forces in the city of Irpin, police Chief Andrey Nebitov announced Sunday.
