An acclaimed US filmmaker was killed in Ukraine on Sunday after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle.
An acclaimed US filmmaker was killed in Ukraine on Sunday after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle. B rent Renaud,50, from Little Rock, Arkansas, was gathering material for a report about refugees when his vehicle was hit at a checkpoint in Irpin, just outside the capital Kyiv. Ukraine’s interior ministry said the area had sustained intense shelling by Russian forces in recent days. Mr Renaud was one of the most respected independent producers of his era, Christof Putzel, a filmmaker and close friend who had received a text from Mr Renaud three days before his death, said. Mr Renaud and Mr Putzel won a 2013 Alfred I duPont-Columbia University journalism award for Arming The Mexican Cartels, a documentary about how guns trafficked from the US fuelled drug gang violence. “This guy was the absolute best,” Mr Putzel told The Associated Press. “He was just the absolute best war journalist that I know. This is a guy who literally went to every conflict zone.” The details of Mr Renaud’s death were not made immediately clear by Ukrainian authorities, but American journalist Juan Arredondo said the two had been travelling in a vehicle towards the Irpin checkpoint when they were both shot.
