The widow of a Fox News war zone photographer who was killed in Ukraine earlier this year is demanding answers about her husband’s death.
In March, Pierre Zakrzewski was killed when a vehicle that he was riding in was struck by incoming fire. The incident happened in the Kyiv suburb of Horenka. Also killed in the attack, was Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova. Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall was seriously injured and is still recovering.
According to the Washington Post, Michelle Ross-Stanton is piecing together a comprehensive timeline of Zakrzewski’s death. So far, she has determined that Zakrzewski, Hall and Kuvshynova ended up in the village of Horenka by way of a road that looped the long way around the off-limits town of Irpin.
“I want the truth and I want the whole truth and I want to know exactly what happened,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Fox to give me the right answers, but I don’t trust anybody to give me the answers that I want to hear.”
Zakrzewski, Kuvshynova, and Hall reportedly traveled with two soldiers from a Ukrainian militia who had assisted two New York Times reporters a day earlier.
Ross-Stanton told the paper that she believes that a shell sprayed the shrapnel that pierced her husband’s femoral artery just below his flak jacket.
Zakrzewski’s team was reportedly alone in Horenka and for whatever was not with the security team assigned to them by Fox News.
“Standard operating procedure is for security to go with them,” she said. “Why didn’t they?”
The Post spoke with more than 10 correspondents from a variety of news organizations; many said that they would have taken the same trip and that the Fox crew had merely accepted the standard degree of reasonable risk that comes with their line of work.
“We are completely devastated by the deaths of Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshynova,” a Fox News Spokesperson told Barrett News Media. “Their extraordinary dedication to telling the stories of those impacted by the war in Ukraine placed a critical spotlight on the atrocities unfolding there daily — we are forever grateful for their commitment to journalism and their ultimate sacrifice. We did everything humanly possible in the aftermath of this unprecedented tragedy amid the chaos of a war zone.”
“Our plan was for Pierre to retire early, and we were going to go off on our boat and have a dog, a water dog,” she said. “We just had so many plans.”
“We are completely devastated by the deaths of Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshynova,” a Fox News Spokesperson told Barrett News Media. “Their extraordinary dedication to telling the stories of those impacted by the war in Ukraine placed a critical spotlight on the atrocities unfolding there daily — we are forever grateful for their commitment to journalism and their ultimate sacrifice. We did everything humanly possible in the aftermath of this unprecedented tragedy amid the chaos of a war zone.”
“Our plan was for Pierre to retire early, and we were going to go off on our boat and have a dog, a water dog,” she said. “We just had so many plans.”
