A funeral ceremony was held in Kyiv for the British volunteer Andrew Bagshaw, who died while attempting to evacuate people from Soledar.

On January 7, the Bakhmut District Police Department received a report about the disappearance of two volunteers — citizens of the United Kingdom, aged 28 and 48.

On January 6, at eight o'clock in the morning, the men left Kramatorsk for Soledar. After that, contact with them disappeared.

These men were Andrew Bagshaw and Chris Parry. Bagshaw's family said volunteers were trying to rescue an elderly woman when an artillery shell hit their car.

On January 11, mercenaries of the Russian Wagner PMC announced that they had discovered a body and published photos of documents found with it — they belonged to both Perry and Bagshaw.

Chris Parry was born in Cornwall, UK and enjoyed rock climbing, cycling, running, and skydiving.

"He found himself drawn to Ukraine in March in its darkest hour at the start of the Russian invasion and helped those most in need, saving over 400 lives plus many abandoned animals," Parry's relatives said.

Andrew Bagshaw had British citizenship but lived in New Zealand. Bagshaw was a scientist with a PhD in genetics. Since March, he had been volunteering in Ukraine: he delivered food and medicine to the residents of the frontline areas, helped evacuate the elderly, etc.

Bagshaw's parents said: "The world needs to be strong and stand with Ukraine, giving them the military support they need now, and help to rebuild their shattered country after the war."

Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke was a friend of the fallen volunteers, who also evacuates people from war zones in the east. It was Ivlev who organised the farewell ceremony and memorial service. The two men met this summer and worked together to evacuate people from Siversk.

"When Andrew's family asked when he would come home, he always said, 'When it's all over.' Foreigners who come to Ukraine are people who are fighting for justice and understand that they cannot stand aside. Andrew was a man who didn't talk much, he just did," Ivlev-Yorke recalls.

A friend of the deceased said that they were able to return the bodies from the uncontrolled territory. Chris Parry's family plans to repatriate the body to the UK, while Andrew's family wants to cremate the deceased.

Nicoletta Stoyanova, a freelance journalist, says that she last saw the deceased volunteers in one of the Bakhmut volunteer centers on January 3. Then they had coffee and agreed to meet in a week, when Stoyanova would film the evacuation process.

"When we realized that the boys were not getting in touch, we started to sound the alarm. Their friends filed a report, and the police began interviewing anyone who might have seen them. It was unclear why they had gone since the roads to Soledar were already closed. But the guys were such that when they understood that someone needed help, they tried to provide it to the last."

Volunteer Mykola Mohylevskyi met the victims in Soledar in early summer. Mohylevskyi says that Andrew Bagshaw was fully committed to helping the Ukrainian people, since March he had been living in the east of Ukraine and learning Ukrainian in his free time.

The volunteers appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme three days before the disappearance.

Chris Perry's last words on camera were: "As long as people are willing to be evacuated, I will be ready to go."