Michelle Ross-Stanton has spent months investigating the March 14 attack on her husband, Pierre Zakrzewski, and his colleagues outside Kyiv.
November 3, 2022 at 5:00 am EDT Michelle Ross-Stanton in the London flat she used to share with her husband, Pierre Zakrzewski. (Tori Ferenc for The Washington Post) Comment on this story Comment Pierre Zakrzewski always came home. From Syria. From Libya. From Afghanistan. As a cameraman and photographer who had spent most of his long career in conflict zones, he knew when to duck, when to run, the bleak scenarios to navigate, the trouble spots to avoid. So when Michelle Ross-Stanton got a call from Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on the evening of March 14, saying her husband had been missing in Ukraine for five hours, she knew he was being hunted somewhere. He’s probably taking care of his team members, like he always did. “I decided not to tell his family,” she said, “because I was so sure he would show up. We all knew he had nine lives.” But Ross-Stanton didn’t wait for the next message from Fox: A former journalist herself, she began calling from her London home that night to friends, sources, long-distance connections — anyone who might know something about Pierre. The next day he learned that Zakrzewski, 55, had been killed, along with a 24-year-old Ukrainian journalist from his group, Oleksandra Kuvshynova. They were in the Kyiv suburb of Khorenka on a reporting trip when their vehicle was hit by an explosion. The third member of their reference group, Benjamin Hall, then 39, was alive but suffered serious injuries that would cost him a leg, an eye and part of his leg. Two Ukrainian soldiers they were traveling with were also killed, according to the Washington Post. Seven months later, Ross-Stanton hasn’t stopped working the phones. For war correspondents, the risk of death has long been an accepted part of the job. Already, 15 journalists have been killed in Ukraine since the war began in February, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. But as of November, Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova remain the only journalists working for an American television network to die in that conflict. Ross-Stanton is still searching for the murky circumstances of her husband’s death. Although he has pieced together some of the story of how his team came to the front lines of the fighting at a particularly dangerous time, he is still trying to determine if anyone – beyond the military force that launched the attack – is responsible for what happened. or for the chaotic aftermath. One particular detail continues to trouble her: The team of security consultants hired by Fox to work with its reporters in Ukraine were not traveling with her husband and his team when they were attacked. Her frustration at the lack of information is shared by the parents of Kuvshynova, a young craftsman and aspiring journalist who began reporting in conflict zones when her country was invaded. They said no one from Fox called to tell them their daughter had been attacked, and they weren’t given more information in the months that followed about how she died. They first became aware of the incident after reading a social media post by a Ukrainian government official. “We were not kept informed at all. Communication was not sufficient,” said her father, Andrey Kuvshynov. “We learned about it from the Internet.” A Fox News spokesperson said senior leadership has been in contact with both families and has worked with a translator to contact Kuvshynova’s parents. In a statement, the spokesperson added that Fox was completely devastated by their deaths. “Their extraordinary dedication to telling the stories of those affected by the war in Ukraine brought a critical spotlight to the atrocities unfolding there every day – we are forever grateful for their commitment to journalism and their ultimate sacrifice. We did everything humanly possible in the wake of this unprecedented tragedy in the chaos of a war zone.” While she declined to discuss specifics, Ross-Stanton said she is still in talks with Fox about a settlement that would provide compensation for Zakrzewski’s death. Meanwhile, with a notebook and a diary at her side, she constructs a chronology of her husband’s last days and hours. “I want the truth and I want the whole truth and I want to know exactly what happened,” Ross-Stanton said in the first interview she gave about her husband’s death. “It’s not that I don’t trust Fox to give me the right answers, but I don’t trust anyone to give me the answers I want to hear.” Zakrzewski arrived in Ukraine in late January with a crew of Fox News colleagues. After checking into the InterContinental Kyiv hotel – a popular base camp for Western journalists – they set to work reporting on growing threats of a Russian invasion. A relentlessly upbeat presence with a shaggy moustache, Zakrzewski came to this assignment with a higher status than most camera operators. The reputation of skill and principal built with his decades of experience in the field had also positioned him to take on some of the traditional responsibilities of a producer. From his base in London, he was often sent to danger zones, as well as to less dangerous news across Europe, such as Britain’s royal functions – which his wife says he didn’t particularly enjoy covering. Even their vacations were globe-trotting adventures. Family videos show Zakrzewski — a French-Irish dual national whom some friends call “The Crazy Irishman” — zooming by on his motorcycle, chatting with locals. “It never unpacks,” Ross-Stanton said. “I learned not to buy food for more than two days at a time. For him, it was a lifestyle choice.” For the first few weeks, the Fox News team gave regular updates on the Russian threat, usually through the lens of Zakrzewski’s camera. Much was broadcast live from the hotel roof, although correspondents also took to the streets of Kiev and other cities, talking to residents about the growing threats of war. In late January, Fox reported on a group of civilians training for combat. in February, he captured scenes of Ukrainian soldiers training with live fire outside Chernobyl and, later, teenagers pressing grenades to prepare for the rebel battle. Most of the Fox staff had worked together before. But they had a new team member: Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a festival organizer and journalist who saw the opportunity to work with Fox as a great opportunity to break into journalism. Starting in mid-January, she began helping the Fox crew moderate and translate interviews and find her way around the area. She bonded with her new colleagues over their shared love of coffee and passion for music. “We were very proud of her and we knew it was important to do when the war started,” her father said, speaking of himself and her mother, Iryna Mamaysur. When her parents were concerned about her safety, she “tried to calm us down and told us that Fox News was reliable and that they had taken all the safety precautions.” In recent years, Fox News has consolidated its ratings dominance by focusing on conservative reporting, and its Ukraine newsgathering presence has been smaller than some of its competitors — about 20 during the first weeks of the conflict, while CNN had 75 at the beginning of the invasion. But “Fox threw everything at Ukraine,” Ross-Stanton said. “They poured a lot of resources into it. Everyone was there.” The Kiev bureau’s first danger on camera came on February 19, when correspondent Trey Yingst traveled to Ukraine’s eastern border and broadcast footage of troops preparing for the invasion. As Yingst interviewed the country’s interior minister, Russian-backed separatists launched artillery attacks. The correspondent made a run for it on live TV. As Zakrzewski’s camera struggled to keep up, Yingst was heard shouting: “Where’s Pierre? Where is Pierre?’ The Post examined the lead-up to the Ukraine war. Here’s what we learned. On February 24, Russia began its attack on Ukraine. Hall, who primarily covered the State Department from Washington, moved from the relative safety of the western city of Lviv to join the Kiev staff. On March 11, the British-born correspondent reported on air that Russian troops were ready to invade the capital. Fox aired a clip filmed at a children’s hospital in Kyiv – the voices of young patients rising in song, the half-covered body of a dead boy lying on the floor. Air raid sirens could be heard in the distance. “Thanks, Benji,” said host John Roberts at the end of the show. “Stay safe.” As the Russians advanced across Ukraine that month, journalists were fascinated by one escape route: the bridge over the Irpin River that separated Kyiv from the vulnerable western suburb of Irpin. Ukrainian forces had destroyed the bridge to prevent Russian tanks from rolling into the capital from the west, but now panicked suburbanites were scrambling on wooden planks over the water to escape the shelling – a dramatic scene highlighted in many news reports. Then, on March 13, an American documentary maker was shot and killed while passing through a military checkpoint on the west side of the river. Brent Renaud, 50, was working on a project about war refugees for Time Studios. Zakrzewski saw the shooting from a distance, according to his wife. Renaud’s death shocked the Kyiv-based press corps. It also messed up their logistics: The mayor of Irpin told reporters to stay away, and a major highway was closed, forcing those who wanted to travel to the front to take a more indirect route. The next day, March 14,…
