The British founder of a bomb disposal charity is believed to have been killed while clearing mines in Ukraine.
Chris Garrett was among three people said to have been critically injured in an incident near Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast on Tuesday.
He was reportedly wounded while trying to clear minefields, according to The Sun.
Shaun Pinner, a former British soldier and Ukraine war prisoner, said today that Mr Garrett and another individual, who was not named, had ‘sadly passed away’.
‘I can confirm that Chris was among those who died,’ he wrote on X today. ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected.’
Mr Garrett was a British volunteer from the Isle of Man, working in Ukraine to clear landmines from the war-torn country.
He was the founder of Prevail, a charity providing training to others in how to safely remove undetonated explosives.
Nearly a third of Ukraine is estimated to have been ‘contaminated’ by explosive ordnance.
Charities warn that landmines pose an ‘ever-present danger’ to civilian communities, with ‘children particularly at risk’.
Mr Chris Garrett was said to have died after being injured while clearing mines in Ukraine
Mr Garrett was the founder of a charity working tirelessly to remove landmines in Ukraine
Earlier this year, Mr Garrett was sentenced to 14 and a half years in jail by a Russian proxy court in Donetsk.
He was convicted of terrorism charges in his absence by a court under Russian control, while using his skills as a bomb disposal expert to defuse and remove materiel left behind by Russian troops.
‘The charges are ridiculous,’ he said at the time, as reported by ITV.
‘I mean, charged for terrorism by volunteering, or at times, being under contract by the Ukrainian armed forces.’
Mr Garrett was working in Ukraine to clear landmines years before the full Russian invasion in February 2022.
In 2016, two years after the illegal annexation of Crimea, Mr Garrett said that he was clearing landmines with a volunteer battalion as part of the Ukrainian National Guard.
He returned to Ukraine to help in landmine clearance four days after Russia began its invasion in 2022.
He was among the first into the towns of Bucha and Irpin, and on hand to assist after the defiant last stand at Hostomel airport outside Kyiv, an inflection point in the early days of the conflict as Ukraine denied Russia its advance on the capital.
Mr Garrett told The Sun that his job would ‘be about preserving life, not taking it’.
Radio Free Europe reported that Mr Garrett had worked as a tree surgeon before briefly joining the British Army as a teenager.
He told the outlet he had gained much of his knowledge of explosives after he began clearing landmines in Myanmar in 2014.
Tributes poured in for Mr Garrett with the news of his death.
One X user wrote: ‘He and the team were very courageous and brave. Their heroic legacy of brave actions and sacrifice will live on forever.’
Another reflected: ‘I remember talking to the guy on here just after the war started I remember thinking then this guy and team are doing amazing things for Ukrainians – saddened by this loss but at least there’s a legacy born from the team that’ll always be remembered.’
An anti-personnel frag cluster munition, according to Mr Garrett. The Hero British volunteer shared pictures of his work last week. His charity, Prevail, worked to clear landmines, train more volunteers and offer paramedic assistance to teams in Ukraine
Shaun Pinner, who wrote of Mr Garrett’s tragic passing on X, was a prisoner of war in Ukraine, captured by Russian forces in 2022.
Mr Pinner signed up to be a contracted soldier in Ukraine’s military in 2018, rising through the ranks after serving with the British Army for nine years.
He was captured by Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol in April 2022.
Mr Pinner said he was brutally beaten, electrocuted and starved by his captors over five months in captivity – treatment he said infringed his human rights and entitled him to compensation.
A Kyiv court ruled last April that he had been inhumanely treated and that the Russian Federation must compensate him accordingly.
An FCDO Spokesperson said: ‘We are in contact with the local authorities following the death of a British national in Ukraine.’
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