American journalist Brent Renaud shot and killed by Russian forces in Ukraine

Brent Renaud, an award-winning American filmmaker and video journalist, was shot and killed while reporting in Irpin, Ukraine, according to Anton Gerashchenko of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. Renaud was 50 years old.

In a statement, Gerashchenko said that Renaud “paid with his life for trying to expose the insidiousness, cruelty and ruthlessness of the aggressor.”

Renaud has worked for several media organizations, including The New York Times, NBC and HBO. Although he was wearing a Times press badge at the time of his death (shown in the photo above), the newspaper said he was not on assignment for them at the time and that the badge had been issued for a previous assignment years earlier.

In fact, according to Renaud’s brother Craig, Brent was in Ukraine filming a multi-part series about refugees around the world called “Tipping Point” for MSNBC and Time magazine’s television and film division.

Edward Felsenthal, editor-in-chief of Time, and Ian Orefice, president of Time and Time Studios, confirmed in a statement: “Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts go out to all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists can safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

“Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal and Time and Time Studios president Ian Orefice said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists can safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

Fellow American journalist Juan Arredondo told the harrowing story from a hospital bed where he was shot and his colleague killed by Russian forces while reporting in suburban Kiev.

“We crossed one of the first bridges in Irpin, we were going to film other refugees leaving, and we got into a car,” Juan said in a short video posted on the Okhmatdyt hospital’s Instagram page. “Someone offered to take us to the other bridge and we passed the checkpoint and they started shooting at us. Um, so the driver came back and they kept shooting at us, the two of us – my friend is Brent Renaud. And he was shot and left behind. (doesn’t know what it’s like) I saw he was shot in the neck. And we broke up.”

The video is accompanied by photos of Renaud undergoing surgery to remove shrapnel from his thigh.

“Courageous American journalists wanted to film the crimes of Russian soldiers and paid the highest price for their professional duty – life and health,” reads the caption Ohmatdyt IG.

Renaud and his brother Craig won a Peabody Award for a Vice News documentary called “Last Chance High” about a Chicago school that serves emotionally disturbed students. Together, they also covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the earthquake in Haiti and cartel violence in Mexico.