Brett Renaud: US journalist and filmmaker killed in Ukraine

A US journalist working in Ukraine has been shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside of Kyiv, police say.

Brett Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who previously worked for the New York Times.

Kiev police chief Andriy Nebytov said he was attacked by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.

It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.

Photos are circulating on the internet showing a press pass issued to Renaud by the New York Times.

In a statement, the newspaper said it was “deeply saddened” to hear of Renaud’s death but that he had not worked for the newspaper in Ukraine.

Renaud last worked for the newspaper in 2015, according to the Times, and the press card he carries in Ukraine was issued years ago.

Renaud had worked for a number of US news organizations, reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series about Chicago schools, Last Chance High. He often worked with his brother Craig, who was also a filmmaker.

A Ukrainian police officer told PBS news journalist Jane Ferguson to “tell America, tell the world what they did to a journalist.”

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said CBS News that the country could impose “reasonable consequences” on Russia for Renaud’s death.

The news comes less than two weeks after Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Skaum, a cameraman for Ukrainian TV channel LIVE, was killed when a TV tower in Kviv was hit by shelling.

A few days later, a British journalist covering the war in Ukraine was shot and wounded after coming under fire in Kyiv.

Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his four colleagues were driving back to the Ukrainian capital when they were ambushed.