Oleksandra ‘Sasha’ Kuvshynova
In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Fox News journalist Benjamin Hall was traveling in a car in the suburbs of Kyiv with videographer Pierre Zakrzewski and journalist and interpreter Oleksandra Kuvshynova, along with two Ukrainian soldiers, when their vehicle came under attack.
Russian forces fired missiles at the car, killing everyone else in the vehicle except Hall, who escaped. Hall was severely injured and lost his right leg below the knee and most of his left foot.
Last year, PetaPixel reported that the widow of 55-year-old Zakrzewski, an experienced cameraman, is suing Fox News, seeking $11 million in compensation, arguing that the network did not adequately protect her husband and did not hold the necessary insurance to be able to fully compensate his family after his death.
Now, a lengthy report from NPR looks at Kuvshynova, a 24-year-old journalist, interpreter, and occasional photographer. Known as Sasha, her parents are suing Fox News and Benjamin Hall in New York, alleging that Hall ignored safety instructions and took the crew beyond Kyiv’s city limits despite instructions from security staff not to do so.
“If you took Benji out of the equation, this never would have happened,” Aaron King, one of those security advisers, tells NPR. Another adviser, Shane Thomson, has joined the Kuvshynovs’ lawsuit, alleging Fox scapegoated him for the tragedy.
The Kuvshynovs allege that Hall’s subsequent memoir, Saved, formed part of a broader effort by Fox to obscure what happened and its own safety failures. Thomson claims Fox tried to portray him as responsible for what happened, including allegedly claiming that he had a drinking problem in Kyiv.
In a statement to NPR, Fox says: “Ben Hall was a victim of this brutal war zone attack and the lawsuit’s attempt to shift blame onto him is deeply shameful.”
The case is being heard at the New York Supreme Court while the parallel suit filed by Zakrzewski’s widow is currently winding through the U.K. legal system.
NPR reports that the odds of the Kuvshynovs winning their case are long, but in December Judge Mary V. Rosado allowed some of the claims to proceed.
“The circumstances under which Kuvshynova died were allegedly misrepresented to the Kuvshynovs, who, given the circumstances of grieving the loss of a daughter while navigating a calamitous invasion by a large nuclear-armed country, did not have the ability to investigate whether the Fox Defendants’ representation of events was accurate,” Rosado said.
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