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Category:Journalists killed while covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine Category:1966 births Category:French journalists Category:Irish journalists Category:Journalists from Paris

Pierre Zakrzewski was an Irish photojournalist who was killed during the Battle of Kyiv in March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biography
Pierre Zakrzewski was born in Paris, France on the 15th of August 1966, to a French mother and a Polish father. His father, Andrzej Zakrzewski, had fled Poland for Scotland at the beginning of its invasion during the Second World War, before later moving to Dublin, Ireland. In his youth, Pierre attended St. Conleth's College, as well as studying at University College Dublin for a time.

Career
Zakrzewski began his career as a freelance photojournalist, documenting the efforts of the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Aghanistan, as well as smuggling photos of the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests out of China. He later joined Fox News, and documented, among other events, the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, the protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Death
Zakrzewski was sent to Ukraine in late January 2022, initially being stationed in Chernobyl, before later moving to Kyiv around the beginning of the Russian invasion on the 24th of February.

On the 14th of March in Horenka, a suburb of Kyiv, Zakrzewski, along with English journalist Benjamin Hall and local consultant and journalist Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, was being driven towards a Ukrainian military checkpoint by two soldiers from the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, when they came under mortar fire. The first shell landed "about 30 yards away", while the second impacted directly next to the car, resulting in severe and fatal injuries for several of the occupants. Both Zakrzewski and Hall then exited the car, and the third and final shell landed directly on top of it. Zakrzewski then reportedly shouted to Hall to "play dead" to avoid, and Hall called at a passing car to drive him to a hospital. Zakrzewski was found dead in a Kyiv morgue a day later, with everyone else in the car except for Hall confirmed to also be dead.

His killing, alongside that of Kuvshynova, sparked international outcry, and has been condemned as a war crime by many, with French prosecutors opening up a war crimes probe into the event.