‘I just get on with it’: How bomb disposal expert killed in Ukraine viewed the war ...Middle East

Chris Garrett had learned to disarm whatever the Russians put in his way. The mine clearance specialist had defused tonnes of deadly munitions from helicopter rockets to explosive bullets in Ukraine since 2014.

As the ordnance littering the battlefield evolved, so did his skills, but the risk was constant. So was the bravery required to do the job, day in and day out.

The 40-year-old was killed on Tuesday in an explosion while carrying out clearance work near Izyum, still laded with unexploded devices after Russian forces were pushed out in 2022.

Another member of the bomb disposal team, from Australia, was also fatally wounded and a third badly injured in the blast.

When The i Paper last spoke to Chris in March, his final national newspaper interview, he described the “ISIS tactics” now being used by Vladimir Putin’s troops.

Bobby traps were hidden in match boxes, while computer-programmed devices created a deadly new threat to bomb disposal teams.

He also spoke of the daunting clearance task in the world’s most heavily mined country, where an estimated 23 per cent of the land may be contaminated by explosive devices since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

“It’s going to take tens and tens of years to be able to clear Ukraine. We’re probably looking at nothing too dissimilar to Cambodia,” he said.

He opened up, too, about the casualties among bomb disposal teams.

“From the humanitarian aspect, whether it be the police and emergency services, there’s accidents happening every month, every week,” he said.

In December 2022, eight months after The i Paper first spoke to Chris, he was stationed close to the frontline, where incoming artillery shells were as much a threat as the hazards in the frozen ground.

Asked how he coped with the stress of his role, he was matter-of-fact: “To be honest I don’t really think about it.

“I wake up in the morning, have my cigarette and coffee and just get on with it.”

In subzero conditions, his team hunted anti-tank, anti-personnel and butterfly mines, as they tried to clear a path for wounded troops to be evacuated.

“The ground is so hard you’re having to exert so much pressure with a probe, you really run the risk of accidentally setting it off,” he said.

“There’s a huge amount of submunitions being fired. In a normal world, you just stop to wait until it was safe and then you do the clearance. But it doesn’t stop. All day, all night.”

Chris’ death has sent shockwaves through the community of international volunteers in Ukraine, where his expertise has trained thousands of Ukrainian police and military personnel.

Shaun Pinner, a former British Army soldier and Ukrainian marine who worked alongside him with the volunteer group Prevail, which his friend founded, said he had been motivated by “the injustices that Russia was doing here”.

“He hated mines, he hated oppressed people. He wanted to do something for Ukraine and their sovereignty. He’s been here since 2014 doing it so it’s uncountable the lives he’s saved,” he said.

“He was doing one of the most dangerous jobs out here. He’d seen the developments and innovations that Russia would use in their ordnance and explosives.

“So it’s going to be a major loss for us and Ukraine.”

When The i Paper first spoke to Chris in April, 2022, he had been in Bucha, site of the infamous Russian massacre of hundreds of civilians.

His team were also working around Irpin and Hostomel, where fierce fighting had left artillery shells and tank rounds strewn across the combat zone.

He spoke of his disgust at the Russian occupiers’ callous methods, with retreating Moscow forces booby-trapping bodies.

“They will booby trap pretty much anything,” he said. “In civilian built-up areas it could be anything from a booby-trapped door or cupboard.

“We have seen grenades stuffed into soap drawers of washing machines. It is absolutely indiscriminate. It is just trying to instil fear into the population.

“You have to follow the rules because if you get two chances you are very lucky,” he said after coming across a trip wire between two hand grenades.

A former tree surgeon who briefly served in the British Army, had first come to Ukraine in 2014, shortly after the war with Russia-backed separatists erupted.

After a spell fighting in the Azov Battalion, he returned to the ordnance clearance skills he learned in Burma, spending time with Ukraine’s National Guard. He left in 2018, but returned three days after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

After leaving the country in 2023 with his partner for the birth of their child, they soon returned. “Ukraine was unfinished business,” he explained.

New threats awaited. In February this year, he and his team were on a casualty evacuation search mission in Odessa when swarms of Russian kamikaze drones rained down close to them.

Terrifying footage showed the Iranian-designed Shahed flying bombs exploding yards from him.

He said: “There was nowhere to hide. Everyone’s being targeted by the Russians.”

“We’re so sick of this nonsense. And everything we’re seeing at the moment,” he added, directing his anger at Donald Trump’s treatment of Ukraine.

“There’s a real fear of what is going on because Ukraine used to think that America was its friend and ally.”

square DEFENCE Analysis

Trump is threatening a new Ukraine disaster - consequences for the UK will be dire

The circumstances of Tuesday’s fatal explosion are still being investigated by Ukrainian authorities, Shaun, who first met his friend in 2018.

A former prisoner of war who spent several months in Russian captivity, Shaun had to break news of his friend’s death to his family this week.

“It’s not something I ever want to do again. But it’s become normal out here. I’ve lost so many friends,” he said.

“He was devoted to mine clearance and mine awareness. He got a lot of respect from not just Ukrainian civilians, but the military, because of his knowledge.

“We’ve got a mission to get him back home and repatriate into his family. It’s a massive loss of us here and a real punch in the stomach which we’re not fully processing yet.”

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