Fox News on Tuesday confirmed that its cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed on Monday in Ukraine during an incident that also left the network’s correspondent Benjamin Hall hospitalized.
“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we share the news this morning regarding our beloved cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski,” Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote in a memo to the network’s employees. “Pierre was killed in Horenka, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine. Pierre was with Benjamin Hall yesterday newsgathering when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire.”
Noting that Zakrzewski was a “war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for FOX News from Iraq to Afghanistan,” Scott said in her note that his “passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.” She added that he was “wildly popular” within the media industry throughout his lengthy tenure at Fox.
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“Pierre was a constant in all of our international coverage,” Fox News president Jay Wallace said about Zakrzewski. “I, like countless others, always felt an extra sense of reassurance when arriving on the scene and seeing him with camera in hand. The legacy of his positive spirit, boundless energy and eye for the story will carry on.”
Scott further pointed out in the memo that Zakrzewski played a key role in helping freelance associates and their families flee Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal.
Ukraine’s ministry of defense issued a statement on Tuesday claiming that, along with Zakrzewski, a producer named Oleksandra Kurshynova was also killed in the incident. “The truth is the target. Russian troops fired at Fox News camera crew near Kyiv,” the ministry wrote, adding that correspondent Hall, who survived, has “lost part of his leg.”
In a separate memo on Tuesday afternoon, Scott confirmed Kurshynova’s death and told Fox News staff she had been working as a freelance consultant for the network in Ukraine. “She was incredibly talented and spent weeks working directly with our entire team there, operating around the clock to make sure the world knew what was happening in her country,” Scott wrote.
“Several of our correspondents and producers spent long days with her reporting the news and got to know her personally, describing her as hard-working, funny, kind and brave,” the Fox News chief added. “Her dream was to connect people around the world and tell their stories and she fulfilled that through her journalism.”
A number of Zakrzewski’s colleagues paid tribute to their fallen colleague after the tragic news was announced.
“I don’t know what to say. Pierre was as good as they come. Selfless. Brave. Passionate,” tweeted Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who has been reporting from Ukraine. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Fox News anchor John Roberts, in relaying the “horrible news” of Zakrzewski’s death, shared his memories of his longtime co-worker. “I worked with Pierre many times around the world,” he wrote on Twitter. “He was an absolute treasure. Sending our most heartfelt prayers to Pierre’s wife and family.”
News of Zakrzewski’s death and Hall’s injuries comes as journalists have increasingly come under fire while covering Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.
Just this past Sunday, acclaimed documentarian and journalist Brent Renaud was killed in Irpin. Alongside journalist Juan Arredondo, who was also wounded, Renaud was shot outside of a Ukrainian checkpoint. According to Arredondo, the two were filming refugees when they were attacked by Russian forces as they crossed a bridge.
Emil Filtenborg and Stefan Weichert, two war reporters working for The Daily Beast, suffered multiple gunshot wounds while reporting from northeast Ukraine. The pair survived their injuries and wrote of the ordeal in brutal detail, with Weichart recounting how amid a flurry of bullets, “I thought about whether Emil was dying. I also thought: Am I dying?”
