Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall is facing allegations that he disregarded serious security warnings before entering a high-risk area of Ukraine, where a Russian strike killed two members of his team and left him critically injured.
The claims form part of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the parents of 24-year-old Ukrainian producer Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, who was killed in March 2022 alongside longtime Fox cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski.
Two security advisers who worked with Fox News in Ukraine have supported important parts of the family’s account. Speaking to NPR, they said the network and Hall had received repeated instructions to avoid the area northwest of Kyiv because of the escalating danger.
Former Fox security adviser Aaron King told NPR that, in his view, “If you took Benji out of the equation, this never would have happened.”
Fox News has strongly rejected the accusations, saying it plans to “respectfully defend against the inaccurate claims within this lawsuit.”
The network has also maintained that protecting its journalists “has always been our number one priority.”
Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall survived the March 2022 Russian strike outside Kyiv but lost his right leg below the knee, most of his left foot and part of his vision.
Ukrainian producer Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, 24, was killed while working with the Fox News team during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There Was No Way We Were Going There
Hall has previously recalled believing that the crew was traveling to a location that would be considerably safer than the area they ultimately reached.
The British-American journalist nearly died in the March 14, 2022 attack. He suffered devastating injuries, including the loss of his right leg below the knee, most of his left foot and part of one eye.
Kuvshynova and Zakrzewski died in the attack, as did two Ukrainian soldiers who were traveling with the journalists.
The assignment took place as warnings about the territory northwest of Kyiv grew increasingly urgent, with Russian forces advancing through the region.
Just one day earlier, American documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud had been shot and killed in Irpin. The city’s mayor then issued a public warning urging journalists not to enter the area.
Shane Thomson, a security adviser who later joined Kuvshynova’s parents in their lawsuit, said the threat level was unmistakable.
“There was no way we were going there,” Thomson told NPR, referring to the security intelligence available at the time. “No way. Not after the credible intel, what we had and everything what we had before. It was all on point. There’s nothing, no gray areas.”
Veteran Fox cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed when the vehicle carrying him, Hall and Kuvshynova came under attack.
Benjamin Hall, Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova and veteran cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski are shown together in Ukraine before the strike that killed Kuvshynova and Zakrzewski.
Patently and Knowingly False
According to the lawsuit, the guidance given at a Fox security meeting the night before the assignment was equally direct: crews were instructed to stay inside Kyiv’s city limits.
The following morning, Hall, Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova left to record defensive trenches reportedly being built within the Ukrainian capital.
Hall has said the team’s “explicit intention was to avoid the front lines, stay clear of active fighting, remain within the city’s borders.”
But when Ukrainian troops refused to let them film at the trenches, the plan changed.
Two Ukrainian soldiers accompanying them suggested traveling to Horenka, a nearby suburb that had been devastated by Russian forces.
Hall later wrote that the crew understood Russian troops to be at least 30 miles away.
Fox’s attorneys have acknowledged in a court filing that Hall believed the location was safer than it really was and that he and the Ukrainian soldiers were wrong.
The family’s lawyers go much further and argue that Hall’s account was ‘patently and knowingly false.’
Their lawsuit also claims the crew’s security adviser gave Hall specific instructions not to travel anywhere that had not undergone a proper security assessment or venture beyond the checkpoint inside Kyiv where they had originally intended to film.
Oleksandra Kuvshynova is seen on the streets of Ukraine covering the war. Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski can be seen to her right.
Kuvshynova’s parents, Andriy Kuvshynov and Iryna Mamaysur, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Fox News and Hall, alleging their daughter’s death was preventable and that repeated security warnings were ignored.
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Reverse the Car!
Hall’s team nevertheless traveled beyond the checkpoint and city limits, according to NPR.
As they returned toward Kyiv after filming scenes of destruction, disaster struck.
‘The first missile came out of nowhere, lands about 30 feet in front of us,’ Hall later recalled in an interview with Sean Hannity.
He said Zakrzewski screamed: “Reverse the car! Reverse the car!” The vehicle became stuck.
‘Pierre shouted, ‘Get out of the car! Everyone, get out of the car!’ And the next second, the second bomb hits right in front of the left of the car. And that one, I went black.’
Zakrzewski managed to escape the vehicle but suffered a devastating leg wound and bled to death beside the road, according to his widow’s lawsuit.
Kuvshynova and the two Ukrainian soldiers never managed to escape the vehicle.
Hall was eventually found alive and was evacuated from Ukraine before receiving extensive medical treatment.
Hall was seen in a wheelchair making his way around the grocery store with a smile on his face.
In the Dark
Kuvshynova’s devastated parents say they were left largely in the dark about their daughter’s fate.
They claim nobody from Fox contacted them on the day of the attack and that it was Kuvshynova’s boyfriend, Ukrainian lawmaker Sviatoslav Yurash, who ultimately told them she had been killed.
Her father later retraced the crew’s route and said a Ukrainian commander told him that Hall had been warned not to continue beyond the checkpoint but had done so anyway.
The family was told 48 hours after the strike that Kuvshynova’s remains were in a morgue. Her father said her body was so badly burned they initially identified her from her clothes, with DNA testing later confirming her death.
Days later, Fox offered the family payment covering wages and benefits, funeral expenses and an additional sum approximating life-insurance proceeds.
Fox says the payment exceeded what it was contractually required to provide and was offered ‘as a show of sympathy and goodwill.’
The network argues a document subsequently signed by Kuvshynova’s father released it from legal responsibility, calling the agreement ‘the beginning and the end of the case.’
But the family argues they did not understand what they were signing amid the chaos of Russia’s invasion and the unimaginable grief of losing their daughter.
‘I did not know the extent Fox was at fault,’ Kuvshynova’s father said in a sworn affidavit.
A New York judge has allowed significant portions of the case to proceed to discovery, potentially giving the family’s lawyers access to internal Fox correspondence and other evidence.
Hall has three daughters with his wife Alicia Meller, an Australian fashion businesswoman.
Hall is pictured on his wedding day in 2015 alongside wife Alicia Meller. The two share three kids.
Grave Injustice
Judge Mary V. Rosado said it would be ‘a grave injustice’ to prevent the parents from investigating whether they had been told the truth about their daughter’s death.
Meanwhile, Zakrzewski’s widow Michelle Ross-Stanton is pursuing a separate case in Britain.
NPR reported that an earlier Washington Post story said she was seeking more than $11 million in compensation over allegations that Fox failed to adequately protect and insure her husband.
Fox continues to deny responsibility for the tragedy.
Kuvshynova’s parents insist their fight is about far more than money.
‘Fox treated us shamefully because they didn’t consider us and didn’t respect us,’ her mother, Iryna Mamaysur, told NPR.
‘This world has lost Oleksandra Kuvshynova – a musician, a poet, an athlete, a photographer and the best daughter. It lost my love.’