New York: A cameraman for Fox News, Pierre Zakrzewski, has been killed in Ukraine outside Kyiv, the US network said Tuesday. Pierre Zakrzewski was killed and his colleague Benjamin Hall was wounded when their vehicle was struck Monday by incoming fire in Horenka, outside the capital, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said.
Hall, a Briton who works as the network’s State Department correspondent, remains hospitalised in Kyiv, Scott said in a statement. Zakrzewski, who was based in London, had been working in Ukraine since February.
According to a local media outlet, the ‘Kyiv Independent’, and ‘Reporters Without Borders’, Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova was killed in the same incident.
Also read: American journalist Brent Renaud killed in Ukraine was working on global refugee crisis project
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he was ‘deeply disturbed and saddened’ by the deaths of Zakrzewski, who had Irish nationality, and his colleague.
“My thoughts are with their families, friends and fellow journalists,” Martin said on Twitter. “We condemn this indiscriminate and immoral war by Russia on Ukraine.”
Scott waxed eloquent about the deceased journalist. “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,” Scott said. “His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.”
It also said Zakrzewski had played a ‘key role’ in getting the network’s Afghan freelance associates and their families out of the country after the US withdrawal. It informed he was given an ‘Unsung Hero’ award at the company’s annual employee ‘Spotlight Awards’ in December.
A US journalist was shot dead Sunday and another wounded in Irpin, a frontline suburb of Kyiv that has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine. Video documentary maker Brent Renaud, 50, was working for ‘Time Studios’ on a project about global refugee issues when he was killed.
According to Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights chief, at least two other Ukrainian journalists have also been killed.
Evgeny Sakun died in a Russian strike on a Kyiv television tower and Viktor Dudar died in fighting close to the southern port city of Mykolaiv, Denisova said on ‘Telegram’.