The grieving brothers of tragic Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski yesterday revealed he saved an orphaned baby he found alone in the street in Ukraine.
Pierre and journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova were killed when their vehicle came under fire from Russian forces near the capital Kyiv.
His Fox News colleague Benjamin Hall suffered a leg injury and may have lost an eye.
Read more: Dublin journalist Pierre Zakrzewski's brothers pay tribute to 'free spirit' on RTE Claire Byrne Show
Pierre’s brothers Nick and Greg revealed how the 55-year-old Dubliner – who was an experienced warzone journalist – had “sounded nervous” on the phone to a pal last weekend.
The situation in the eastern European country was unlike any Pierre had experienced before, as there was no defined frontline.
Nick told how his big brother always helped in the humanitarian efforts while in the field.
He said: “A week or two ago he flashed up a photo of a baby they found on the the street in Kyiv. There were no parents around, nothing.
“They picked him up and brought him into a hospital. To him it was just part and parcel of it.”
Pierre also helped around 1,400 people flee Afghanistan in August as the Taliban took over.
Nick added: “You can’t do this job and not be involved in that perspective.
“The examples of it were in Afghanistan when there was a mass exodus there.
“The amount of people he got through the checkpoints and the cordons to get onto flights.”
He used Whatsapp to keep in constant contact with his family to inform them he was safe.
He did so when Nick messaged him after shots were fired at a Sky News team two weeks ago.
Pierre – who was from Leopardstown – had covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and was a “calculated risk taker”.
But Ukraine was different because there was no defined frontline.
His other brother Greg told Today with Claire Byrne on RTE Radio One: “He always said that was the dodgiest scenario to be in. I remember talking to him when he was in Baghdad for the second Iraq war when all sorts of crazy stuff was happening.
“I said, ‘How do you cope with this stuff?’ And he said ‘No, no. There’s a frontline. You’re either behind it or the other side of it but you know where you are’.
“Whereas the scenario in Ukraine at the moment is you don’t know where the guys are shooting at you. Are they in front of you, behind you, left or right, you don’t know.
“And I was talking to a pal of his from school, Ro Kelly, who spoke to him at the weekend.
“Ro said he just sounded nervous. That somehow the little calculations that he’s been doing all of kind of margins or risk, that had just gone out the window.”
Following the fatal attack on Monday, Greg said the news about Pierre’s colleague Benjamin had come out and he said it didn’t “sound great”.
But it was Tuesday at around 11am when the family began to really worry as Greg’s sister called from London to say he had been missing for 12 hours.
The Zakrzewski brothers explained their dad came to Ireland from Poland following World War II.
Nick said Pierre was the only one who wasn’t born in Dublin, but in Paris, because he was two weeks premature and their mother was over in the French capital at the time. His heartbroken mother Maire-Ange said her son’s Irishness was a badge he wore proudly.
She added: “He was 100% Irish and he objected when people didn’t believe him.”
Pierre and his siblings were pupils at St Conleth’s College in Dublin’s Ballsbridge, South Dublin, before he went on to study arts in UCD.
The brothers explained Pierre wanted to travel but also loved photography which evolved into videography, and the combination of the three saw him go into freelance journalism.
Greg said: “I suppose if you look at his career, there’s the first 10 or 12 years that are freelance. That kind of made him. Because he’s doing stuff on his own. And this is not a role you go to college for, you don’t interview for this. You make it for yourself.
“And it’s pure experience and it’s a lifetime of reading up and educating yourself, all those years he would have been going often on his own.”
Nick and Greg told how Pierre shifted from freelance to Fox News when news crews started being attacked in wa
It was difficult for those working on their own to protect themselves. There was also a shift in the media landscape. Greg said his brother probably had mixed feelings about it as he was losing his independence but had no choice.
They said Pierre loved being Irish and the regard our country is held in worldwide.
His nieces and nephews “love” him and looked up to him. Greg added: “He’s a free spirit.” The siblings also told how they were very proud of him.
Greg said: It’s important work. That’s the other thing that has to be said. Talking amongst ourselves, what would sum him up, in terms of his job and it’s just the truth. And no bulls**t. And that’s what we need more than anything.
“He was kind of no nonsense. There’s a bit of talk going on about how he’s a hero. No, no.
“He was very good at his job and he took it very seriously and he was a hard worker.”
Nick said: “It’s his humanity as well. He’d want to be remembered for that. But he’d want to be remembered for the images he created.
“Without those, people wouldn’t have been seeing what was going on.
“And that’s what he’d really want to be remembered for. That it was
difficult, that he had to take risks is kind of a side note really. It is what he managed to do.”
The family are liaising with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Fox News to get Pierre’s remains out of Ukraine to Poland.
Pierre’s wife Mish will be reunited with his remains there before his body will come home.
Read more: Taoiseach 'deeply disturbed' at death of Irish journalist in Ukraine
Read more: New 'Love Ukraine' mural on Grand Canal raising funds for Red Cross
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