By BRETT LACKEY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Published: 05:01 BST, 12 May 2025 | Updated: 06:20 BST, 12 May 2025

An ex-Australian soldier has been revealed to have died alongside a British volunteer as they cleared landmines in Ukraine on behalf of a charity.

Australian citizen Nick Parsons, 28, also known as ‘Desmond’, was working for non-profit Prevail Together when he was fatally injured at the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region in the country’s war-ravaged east on May 6.

The UK and US-based charity previously confirmed its British founder, Chris Garrett, had died in the incident, while a third man was also injured.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed the Australian man’s death and a spokesperson said: ‘We send our deepest condolences to the family at this difficult time’.

While it could not disclose further details, the ABC has reported the incident involved a weaponised drone.

Mr Garrett from the Isle of Man, founded Prevail to provide training to others in how to safely remove undetonated explosives. The charity also provides paramedic trauma care and humanitarian aid.

Nearly a third of Ukraine is estimated to have been ‘contaminated’ by explosive ordnance and charities warn that landmines pose a consistent danger to civilian communities, with ‘children particularly at risk’.

The charity said on social media in January that drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian homes and electricity infrastructure were ‘constant’ and in February said ‘unexploded ordnance from both drone-dropped munitions and suicide drones has skyrocketed’.

The UK and US based charity clears landmines in war-torn eastern Ukraine (pictured)

The UK and US based charity clears landmines in war-torn eastern Ukraine (pictured)

Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko thanked the Australian for his ‘courageous work in Ukraine’.

‘I would like to express my condolences to his family members to his friends and relatives here in Australia, it’s very tragic,’ he told SBS News.

‘He was just a volunteer, but was on a very important mission, a demining mission… it’s very dangerous work.’

Shaun Pinner, a former British soldier and Ukraine war prisoner, served on Prevail’s board and has previously announced the two deaths.

‘Currently, we are working with local authorities and respective consulates. Our primary role is to get our colleagues home to their families,’ he said.

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.

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.

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Aussie volunteer is killed in Ukraine while trying to clear landmines

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