Buckeye Reporter

 In Case You Missed It, yesterday on the SenateFloor, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) honored the lives of threejournalists killed in Ukraine while covering Russia’s brutal invasion. BrentRenaud, a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker; Pierre Zakrzewski; and Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova with Fox News, were killedthis past week in Ukraine from attacks by the Russian military. Fox Newscorrespondent Benjamin Hall was also injured and remains hospitalized.

“This war was started by a man with no regard for the freedom ofthe press or basic human rights. A man with open contempt and hostility towardreal reporters. A man who presides over a regime where journalists are killedwith impunity,” said Brown. “These three journalists made the ultimatesacrifice to show the world the heroism of the Ukrainian people.”

Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to theU.S. Congress, Brown released astatement supporting President Biden’s military assistance to Ukraine andcalling for corporations to cease their business activities in Russia.

Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:

Mr./Mme. President,

Over the course of just three days, the world has lost threetalented, tenacious journalists to Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Brent Renaud was a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmakerworking to tell the stories of Putin’s war, when he was fatally shot in theKyiv suburb of Irpin on Sunday.

Then on Monday, two more journalists with Fox News lost theirlives, when their vehicle came under fire just outside of Kyiv.

A cameraman and veteran war reporter, PierreZakrzewski, was killed. He had been reporting in Ukraine since February.

We also lost Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova,who was serving as a consultant for Fox’s team in Ukraine. She was just 24years old.

Their colleague, correspondent Benjamin Hall, was alsoinjured and he remains in the hospital.

All journalists know they’ll face danger when they report from warzones. They put themselves in harm’s way to tell the world the true stories weneed to hear. They bring us the unvarnished truth, unfiltered by governmentpropaganda, at times when we need it most.

They are committed to basic ideals of truth, accuracy, andtransparency – so committed that they put their lives on the line to make surethat the world knows what is happening.

Their commitment to these ideals only makes their deaths that muchmore tragic. Today, three families, and so many colleagues, are grieving today– grieving losses that cannot be replaced.

They shouldn’t have to.

This war was started by a man with no regard for the freedom ofthe press or basic human rights. A man with open contempt and hostility towardreal reporters. A man who presides over a regime where journalists are killedwith impunity. 

According the Committee to Protect Journalists, 28 journalistshave been killed in Russian since Putin came to power in 2000, and 10 arecurrently in prison in Russia, simply for doing their jobs.

According to Reporters without Borders, Russia ranks 150 out of199 countries for press freedom – behind Afghanistan, South Sudan, and theDemocratic Republic of Congo.

Last October, the U.S. and 18 other countries issued a statementwarning about, quote, “the Russian government’s intensifying harassment ofindependent journalists and media outlets in Russia.”

In 2020, the Russian government began labeling many outsidejournalists, quote, “media foreign agents” – a term reminiscent of the worst ofthe Cold War.

And it’s not just foreign journalists – Putin’s government has appliedthe “media foreign agent” label to independent Russian outlets in in thecountry, or operating near the country’s border.

It goes against all of our democratic values. And it’s the kind ofauthoritarianism that the Ukrainian people are bravely fighting right now.

They don’t want their country to turn into a place where reportersfear for their lives, where journalists can’t tell the truth.

Journalists’ entire job is to ask tough questions, and tochallenge powerful interests – to afflict the comfortable.

Reporters put their safety and – as we saw with these three bravejournalists in Ukraine – sometimes their lives, on the line – whether it’scovering floods and hurricanes in their communities, or traveling the globe tobring us the stories of war zones.

We depend on reporters in Ohio and around the world to both bringus the stories that impact our day-to-day lives, and tell the stories thatmight not otherwise be told.

And they are too often under attack – both overseas and,increasingly, here at home.

As we all stand with the people of Ukraine, let’s recommitourselves to fighting just as hard as they are for our values – for freedom ofthe press, for free speech.

These three journalists made the ultimate sacrifice to show theworld the heroism of the Ukrainian people.

We pray they are the last.

And we send our sympathy and our gratitude to the families ofBrent Renaud, Pierre Zakrzewski, and Oleksandra Kuvshynova.

They died doing the vital, heroic work they loved. We have abetter understanding of this invasion, of the war crimes being committed and ofhow all of it is affecting people’s lives, because of journalists like them.