The camera operator who accompanied injured Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall in Ukraine was killed by the incoming fire that struck their vehicle Monday.
Fox News Media Chief Executive Suzanne Scott told staff in a memo Tuesday that Pierre Zakrzewski died from injuries sustained while reporting with Hall in Horenka, outside Kyiv. Hall remains hospitalized in Ukraine, according to a Fox News representative.
Scott later announced that Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, 24, a consultant working with Hall and Zakrzewski, also died in the incident. Kuvshynova helped Fox News crews navigate Kyiv and surrounding areas.
Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova are the latest U.S. journalists to die while covering Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Filmmaker Brent Renaud, 50, was killed Sunday after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle in Ukraine.
Zakrzewski, 55, had a long tenure with Fox News, where he covered every major international story in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Based in London, he had been working with Hall in Ukraine since late February.
“His talents were vast and there wasn’t a role that he didn’t jump in to help with in the field — from photographer to engineer to editor to producer — and he did it all under immense pressure with tremendous skill,” Scott wrote. “He was wildly popular — everyone in the media industry who has covered a foreign story knew and respected Pierre.”
Scott’s memo said Zakrzewski played a key role in getting the network’s Afghan freelance associates and their families out of Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdrawal last year.
