Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured on Monday while reporting outside of Kiev, Ukraine. The news network and Ukraine’s Prosecutor General confirmed the incident, with both saying he has since been hospitalized. The circumstances surrounding his wounding were not immediately clear.
“Earlier today, our correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured while newsgathering outside of Kyiv in Ukraine,” read a memo sent to Fox staff on Monday afternoon. “We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information.”
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova posted a picture of Hall’s press credentials to Facebook and confirmed that the American reporter had been taken to the hospital, where he was in “intensive care under the supervision of doctors.” Venediktova did not directly blame Russian forces for Hall’s injuries, but called his wounding a “war crime,” and called on “the leaders of the civilized world” to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine – a decision that would bring NATO powers into direct conflict with Russia and, in the words of US President Joe Biden, would lead to “the third World War.”
It is unclear where specifically Hall was when he was injured, or how he sustained his wounds.
Announcing Hall’s situation during a broadcast of ‘America Reports’ on Monday, Fox anchor John Roberts issued “a reminder, of course, this is in a war zone, that information changes very quickly and we are working as hard as possible to get the best information that we possibly can and get all the details on what has happened.”
The incident came a day after American filmmaker and former New York Times correspondent Brent Renaud was fatally shot in Irpen, on the outskirts of Kiev. The details of Renaud’s death are murky. Ukrainian officials blame Russian soldiers for the shooting, but the incident took place in the vicinity of a road checkpoint manned by Ukrainian troops.
Russian troops have surrounded, but not advanced into, Kiev. Civilians in the settlements around the capital have fled en masse, and Renaud’s colleague – a Colombian-American photographer named Juan Arredondo – told journalists that the pair were in Irpen to film the flow of refugees out of the city. Arredondo was wounded during the incident.