On March 13, Russian occupiers killed American journalist, director, and producer Brent Renaud. Together with his brother Craig, Brent Renaud was working on a TIME Studio project about the refugee crisis. On the day he was killed, Brent and his colleague Juan Diego Herrera Arredondo were filming the evacuation of civilians from Irpin. After having crossed the Russian checkpoint, their car came under fire. Juan was sitting in the backseat so he had managed to bend down in time. He was wounded in the thigh and underwent a successful surgery in Ohmatdyt. Brent Renaud received a deadly shot in the head.
Brent Renaud covered events in hotspots around the globe: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, riots in Egypt and Libya, the battle for Mosul, cartels in Mexico, and refugee crisis in Africa. Together with his brother Craig, he earned a number of professional prizes, such as the Peabody Award, Columbia DuPont Award, Overseas Press Club Award etc.
Brent Renaud first came to Ukraine after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He was interested in Ukraine, its culture, and especially Crimea. By that time, he had already started working on his film about refugees, and for that reason he had decided to go to Ukraine in case a full-scale offensive was launched. He came to Lviv on March 5. Both journalists had a lot of work in Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, and Berdychiv before coming to Kyiv.
“The only thing he filmed for was to have an impact on people’s lives”, film director Eladie Musaieva says in remembrance of Brent Renaud. “His every film was a step towards changing the world for the better. His motivation was to tell the truth.”
Brent Renaud became the first foreign journalist killed by Russia during its full-scale war on Ukraine. In four months of the war, the Russians have killed four more foreign journalists.
