US journalist Brent Renaud 'killed in Ukraine'

An award-winning American journalist was shot dead by Russian forces in Ukraine on Sunday, making him the first foreign member of the press to die reporting on the war.

Brent Renaud, 50, was travelling in a car with other journalists when troops opened fire on the vehicle. He was shot in the neck and killed instantly.

Mr Renaud’s colleague Juan Arredondo, a US photographer, was wounded and received medical attention in hospital.

Mr Arredondo described crossing a bridge in Irpin, close to Kyiv, to try and film refugees fleeing the fighting.

“We crossed a checkpoint and they started shooting at us. So the driver turned around and they kept shooting,” he said.

When asked what had happened to his friend, Mr Arredondo replied: “I don’t know. I saw he’d been shot in the neck. And we got split.”

Jane Ferguson, a reporter for PBS Newshour, said she was on the roadside where Mr Renaud lay under a blanket after being killed.

“Ukrainian medics could do nothing to help him by that stage,” she wrote on Twitter.

She quoted a Ukrainian police officer as saying: “Tell America, tell the world, what they did to a journalist.”

A third victim, a Ukrainian who had been in the same car as the Americans, was also wounded.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said the incident was a “shocking and horrifying event” that demonstrates the “brutality of Vladimir Putin and his forces”.

“And it is why we are working so hard to impose severe consequences on him, and to try to help the Ukrainians with every form of military assistance we can muster, to be able to push back against the onslaught of these Russian forces,” he told CNN.

Mr Renaud had worked for NBC, HBO and the New York Times, often alongside his brother, Craig, in conflict zones around the world. The pair had covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the Haiti earthquake and cartels in Mexico.

Initial reports claimed that Mr Renaud was on assignment for the New York Times after an identity card naming the US daily was found on his body. The newspaper clarified that he was not working for them at the time of his death.

The New York Times said the organisation "is deeply saddened to learn of the death of an American journalist in Ukraine, Brent Renaud".

The incident follows the reported kidnapping of another journalist from the Kherson region. Ukrainian Oleg Baturin disappeared after leaving his home to meet a friend at a bus stop.

According to locals, Russian soldiers were spotted in the area at the time Mr Baturin vanished.