KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Friends and volunteers gathered Sunday at Kyiv’s St Sophia’s Cathedral to say goodbye to Andrew Bagshaw, a New Zealand scientist who was killed in Ukraine while he and another volunteer who also died tried to evacuate people from a front-line town.
Bagshaw, 48, a dual New Zealand-British citizen, and British volunteer Christopher Parry, 28, went missing this month while heading to the town of Soledar, in the eastern Donetsk region, where heavy fighting was taking place.
Volunteers spoke of their memories of Bagshaw and read tributes from his family.
Nikolletta Stoyanova, a friend in Ukraine, shared memories of his bravery.
“Even if no one wanted to go to Soledar, they can do that. Because if he understood that someone needs help, they need to do this help for these people,” Stoyanova said.
Bagshaw’s father, Phil, told reporters in New Zealand that his son wanted to do something to help.
“He was a very intelligent man, and a very independent thinker,” he said. “And he thought a long time about the situation in Ukraine, and he believed it to be immoral. He felt the only thing he could do of a constructive nature was to go there and help people.”
Ukrainian police said Jan. 9 that they lost contact with Bagshaw and Parry after the two headed for Soledar. Their bodies were later recovered.
In a Jan. 24 statement, Parry’s family said he was “drawn to Ukraine in March in its darkest hour.” It added that he’d “helped those most in need, saving over 400 lives plus many abandoned animals.”
Friends said the men’s bodies would be handed over to relatives in the U.K.
On Sunday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine and its Western allies of war crimes in connection with the shelling of two hospitals in Russian-held parts of Ukraine.
The ministry made the accusation a day after Russian officials said 14 people died when a hospital in the Luhansk province settlement of Novoaidar was struck. They said shells also fell on the territory of a hospital in Nova Kakhovka , a Russian-occupied city in Kherson province where a strategically vital bridge across the lower reaches of the Dnieper River is located.
“The deliberate shelling of active civilian medical facilities and the targeted killing of civilians are grave war crimes of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The lack of reaction from the United States and other NATO countries to this, yet another monstrous trampling of international humanitarian law by Kyiv, once again confirms their direct involvement in the conflict and involvement in the crimes being committed.”
Russian state TV aired footage of what is said was the damaged hospital in Novoaidar. It said rockets hit the pediatric department of the two-story building.
“There are no military factories here. There are no military vehicles, no tanks. Who did you shoot at?” the state TV reported quoted Olga Ryasnaya as saying, identifying her as a pediatric nurse.
Novoaidar is located in Luhansk province, which is almost entirely under the control of Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists. Russian and separatist officials alleged the hospital was deliberately targeted.
The movements of journalists are restricted in areas of Ukraine under Russian control.
