New Zealand condemns, unequivocally, the unprovoked and illegal attack by Russia on Ukraine. Russia’s actions are a grave breach of international law; the use of force to change borders is strictly prohibited under international law, as is the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Four New Zealanders have died in the Ukraine war
Shan-le Kearns, 26 was killed in May 2025 well serving in Ukraine.
“It was with deep sadness that I received the news that Shan Le Kearns is believed to have lost his life fighting for Ukraine’s freedom. My sincere condolences go to Shan’s family, and to his friends. My country remains forever thankful for Shan, for other New Zealanders, for Australians, and for all nationals who come to Ukraine’s defence, even at the risk of their own lives. We will always remember Shan. We will never forget him,” Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko,
The family of 26-year-old Shan Le Kearns confirmed his death to New Zealand outlet 1News, stating that he had not been serving directly on the front line but had completed basic training to help rescue wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
His mother, Alice Kearns, said that he "loved what he was doing."“
He was saving lives. Then he was going back to save more, when a drone dropped a grenade on him,” she said.
Kane Te Tai, 38, died in action on March 20 2023 while on a mission for the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR) in Vuhledar, Eastern Ukraine. He had been in Ukraine supporting the fight against Russia’s invasion since April 2022.
Te Tai believed land and people were important, “not politics, not money”.
“His belief was fighting for others, their land, their rights.”
Kane’s closing words
Not that I think that I’ll be in the news, or worthy of being in the news, but here’s for if so and obviously I haven’t made it, here it is. I never really liked you guys anyway (haha).
I enjoyed myself here. I’ve learnt to live and love here. I have fallen in love with the people, the country. I came out here not fully knowing what I was getting myself into, but now I am here and five months on, my resolve has only grown stronger.
This place has a strength, that appears from the outside, as a picture of propaganda or something that is manufactured. It isn’t. The inner strength born from a people invaded is so strong that I, and people like me (including my brother and now deceased teammate Dominic Abelen) are compelled to join this fight.
You’ll say this isn’t our fight. You’re right, it’s not our fight. It’s not our responsibility to help a mother carry in her groceries when she’s trying to get a kid inside. It’s not our responsibility to get involved when four teenagers gang up on a kid at a train station. It’s not our fight - if we don’t want it to be. We can choose to help or not, neither is wrong. But if location or who they are and what their political leaning is and if that is what is bothering you, or the ramifications of what it could bring to our country is your defence, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Life makes you choose. And sometimes you’ve got to expose yourself to help others. Sometimes you have to put some skin in the game, sometimes all of it. But don’t let excuses be the thing that stops you from helping others. On many occasions I’ve told soldiers here about what makes a soldier better, and it comes down to one thing. A good soldier saves energy to save himself but a great soldier digs deep for the energy to save the person next to him. Help one another, if you go out like that then it isn’t a waste.
I’m dragging on, and I hate being a bore. In conclusion, I loved my life. I loved the people in it. My friends, my family, the woman who has my heart and my attention, and my kid, who along with everyone else is going to wonder why. Here is part of the why. I couldn’t leave while others who didn’t choose this can’t either. I couldn’t take the small amount of experience and keenness I have to offer out of a place that needs it. And selfishly, I love this stuff. I haven’t felt this satisfied and alive for a long time. It has been great to be around people with the same mindset and goals. To be able to drink from the Oasis in the vast desert again.
This is not a love letter to romanticise this choice or a reason for others to follow. Just know what you’re getting yourself in for. And if you decide to come then know for sure that this could be it. Your choice has consequences for others too. I have been selfish and made that choice for them.
To my country New Zealand, be happy, be in love, find a reason to be in love with your life. I’ll miss your mountains, your rivers and the sea, so much.
To Ukraine, you’ll win. You’ll see the sunflower fields plentiful under a free yellow and blue flag in the wind soon. I know it. Zhovti Vodi, you’ll be in my soul forever.
Lastly, to my team. I know you did your best. Keep going with life, get a W for us and conduct yourselves with courage, honour and compassion as we have done since being here. My Mexican and Military family, see you guys at the RV in the sky with the rest of our friends.
Kura Takahi Puni, Onward.
Glory to Ukraine.
Dominic Abelen was killed in August 2022 while fighting in the East of Ukraine on leave without pay from the Defence Force. He was working to take over a Russian trench line in the Vuhledar region when he was wounded and died in battle.
The soldier's body ended up in Russian hands after his team came under intense fire while trying to retrieve him. Abelen had served in the defence force for 10 years, including operational service in Iraq, but was on leave without pay at the time of his death.
Two-and-a-half years after he was killed on the frontline of the Ukraine war, Kiwi soldier Dominic Bryce Abelen was laid to rest near Christchurch in march 2025
Abelen’s family released a statement just days after the soldier’s body was repatriated.
“What we have learned in the time since Dominic’s death is that he was leading a company of eight soldiers when he died. He was holding off the Russians while everyone else got out,” says his father, Bryce Abelen.
“He did what the New Zealand Army trained him to do; lay out covering fire while his team got to safety.”
New Zealand aid worker Andrew Bagshaw, 47, was killed in eastern Ukraine in January 2023, alongside fellow British volunteer Christopher Parry. The pair were killed while trying to rescue a civilian from the Soledar region.
Andrew was very gifted – a polymath, really. He was a near-genius, a geneticist working on abnormalities of the genetic code and so on… He was really into animals. In fact, one of the things that immediately endeared him to the Ukrainian people was their love of animals.
“He was a very quiet fellow. His biography is called The Quiet Hero, and I think that sort of sums him up.”
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