US journalist killed by attack near Kyiv

Lviv, Mar 13: A US journalist being treated at a hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv says that he and a US colleague were shot after they were stopped at a checkpoint just after a bridge in Irpin, a town near Kyiv.

Juan Arredondo told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli in an interview from the hospital before being taken for surgery that the colleague who was with him was hit in the neck and remained on the ground earlier on Sunday.

Camilli told The Associated Press that she was at the hospital when Arredondo arrived and that Arredondo had himself had been wounded, hit in the lower back when stopped at a Russian checkpoint. Arredondo told Camilli he didn't have further information on the fellow U.S. journalist, whom he identified as Brent Renaud, a friend.

He told Camilli they were filming refugees fleeing the area when they were shot at while in a car approaching a checkpoint. The driver turned around but the firing at them continued, Arredondo added.

A statement from Kyiv regional police said that Russian troops opened fire on the car, and that one journalist died. Arredondo said that an ambulance brought him to the hospital and that Renaud was “left behind.” (AP)