Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall is facing explosive new accusations over the 2022 Ukraine attack that killed four people and left him with catastrophic injuries, as former security advisers claim the deadly trip should never have happened.
The allegations are at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the parents of 24-year-old Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, who was killed alongside veteran Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and two Ukrainian soldiers on March 14, 2022.
Hall was the only survivor.
Now, an extensive NPR investigation has put new attention on the decisions leading up to the attack, with two security advisers who worked with Fox alleging that warnings about the dangerous area outside Kyiv were ignored.
“If you took Benji out of the equation, this never would have happened,” former security adviser Aaron King told NPR.
King said he had warned Hall against traveling to Kyiv as fighting intensified during the opening weeks of Russia’s invasion.
According to King, he questioned what Hall hoped to accomplish that other reporting teams had not already done.
Hall allegedly considered the warning briefly before responding that he would go anyway.
King’s account is only one side of a bitter legal dispute that is still unfolding. Fox News denies the allegations against the network, while Hall has offered a substantially different account of how the assignment developed.
The deadly attack happened less than three weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Hall, Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova originally planned to report on defensive trenches being constructed around Kyiv, according to Hall’s account. The team intended to remain away from active fighting.
But after they were prevented from filming at the trenches, the two Ukrainian soldiers escorting the journalists suggested traveling to Horenka, a badly damaged village northwest of Kyiv.
Hall has said the team believed Russian forces were much farther away and that the area was safer than it actually was.
That point has become a major part of the legal battle.
Lawyers for Kuvshynova’s parents and former Fox security consultant Shane Thomson contend the crew had already been warned that areas beyond Kyiv’s city limits were dangerously unstable.
Thomson told NPR that shortly before the fatal trip, he had encountered incoming mortar fire while traveling toward the same region with another Fox team.
A British military veteran working with Ukrainian forces had also allegedly warned the security advisers that the area was essentially off limits to journalists.
The danger became even clearer on March 13, 2022, when American journalist Brent Renaud was shot and killed in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv. Irpin’s mayor publicly warned journalists to stay away.
According to the plaintiffs, Fox personnel were told that night not to venture beyond Kyiv city limits.
Thomson claims he specifically rejected a proposed trip toward Irpin during a security briefing.
“This was a very avoidable danger that they were specifically warned about, as to [the] exact time and place that they could not go,” attorney Stephen Humphreys, who represents Kuvshynova’s parents and Thomson, told NPR.
Hall disputes key portions of that account.
In his 2023 memoir, Saved: A War Reporter’s Mission to Make It Home, Hall wrote that the crew’s explicit intention was to avoid the front lines and stay inside Kyiv while reporting on Ukrainian defenses.
According to Hall, it was only after they were unable to film the trenches that their Ukrainian escorts suggested visiting Horenka. He has said the soldiers told them another news crew had traveled there the previous day.
Fox’s attorneys have acknowledged in court filings that Hall’s assessment of the danger turned out to be wrong, while disputing allegations that he knowingly led the group into an area he understood to be unsafe.
Another major point of contention involves the crew’s security protection.
The journalists initially traveled with security adviser Duncan “Jock” Gordon. But when the group switched into the Ukrainian soldiers’ smaller vehicle, there reportedly was not enough room for everyone.
According to the lawsuit, Gordon was left behind while Kuvshynova went with the group because she could speak Ukrainian.
The plaintiffs claim Gordon warned Hall before the group departed not to travel to any location that had not been properly evaluated for security risks.
Hall, Zakrzewski, Kuvshynova and the two Ukrainian soldiers ultimately traveled beyond the original destination.
As they headed back toward Kyiv, their vehicle came under attack.
Hall has described the terrifying moment in interviews and his memoir, saying an initial explosion landed roughly 30 feet in front of the car.
Another blast followed as the vehicle became stuck.
Hall eventually escaped the car before another explosion struck it.
Zakrzewski made it out of the vehicle but suffered a severe leg wound and died at the scene, according to a separate lawsuit filed by his widow.
Kuvshynova and the two Ukrainian soldiers died inside the vehicle.
Hall suffered devastating injuries. His right leg was amputated below the knee, he lost most of his left foot and the sight in his left eye, and he suffered serious injuries to his hand.
He later underwent dozens of surgeries and eventually returned to Fox News.
Kuvshynova’s parents, Andriy Kuvshynov and Iryna Mamaysur, argue that their daughter’s death was not simply an unavoidable tragedy of covering a war.
Their lawsuit accuses Fox of negligence and alleges the network later attempted to minimize its own responsibility and shift blame toward Thomson.
Thomson joined the parents in the litigation, claiming he was unfairly scapegoated after the attack and that the fallout damaged his career.
The lawsuit also names Hall and disputes portions of the account contained in his memoir.
Hall has maintained that the group believed the assignment could be carried out safely. In court filings, he has also said Zakrzewski would have been responsible for communicating security and logistical issues concerning the March 14 assignment.
Fox News has strongly rejected the plaintiffs’ accusations.
“While we understand the grief and continue to mourn the loss of both Pierre Zakrzewski and Sasha Kuvshynova, we will respectfully defend against the inaccurate claims within this lawsuit,” the network said after the case was filed.
Fox added that the safety of its journalists has always been its “number one priority.”
The legal fight has already produced some significant rulings.
A New York judge dismissed Rupert Murdoch, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and Hall’s book publisher HarperCollins from the case, along with two of Thomson’s claims.
But other portions of the lawsuit were allowed to proceed into discovery, opening the door for Kuvshynova’s family to seek internal communications, footage and other Fox records related to the assignment.
The judge said it would be a “grave injustice” to prevent Kuvshynova’s parents from investigating whether they had been given an accurate account of the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s death.
Fox is appealing that ruling and continues to deny legal responsibility.
There is also a second legal case connected to the tragedy.
Zakrzewski’s widow, journalist Michelle Ross-Stanton, has pursued a separate lawsuit in Britain alleging Fox failed to adequately protect her husband while he was working in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, authorities are still examining the attack itself.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office told NPR that national police continue to investigate the journalists’ deaths as part of potential criminal proceedings involving Russian forces. French authorities have also opened a judicial investigation into possible war crimes connected to the strike.
More than four years after the attack, the basic facts remain heartbreaking and undisputed: Kuvshynova, Zakrzewski and two Ukrainian soldiers were killed while covering Russia’s invasion, and Hall barely survived.
What remains fiercely contested is whether the tragedy was an unavoidable consequence of reporting from a war zone — or whether warnings were ignored before the team ever reached the road where four people would lose their lives.
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