Chris Barry: The Cornish running coach who saved hundreds of Ukrainian front lines | world News

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It’s hard to imagine the courage needed to drive a pickup truck into a frontline hotspot, where artillery fire is blasting everywhere as you try to evacuate as many people as possible.

Chris Barry didn’t know much about Ukraine before Russia invaded in February of last year, but as soon as he saw the news of the invasion, he knew he had to go help.

He spent months going into recently liberated villages in some of the most dangerous parts of the front line where he saved hundreds of civilians.

Confirmation of his death comes on Tuesday after he and fellow Briton Andrew Bagshaw went missing after heading to the besieged city of Solidar.

Mr Parry, 28, originally from Cornwall, had been living in Cheltenham and working as a running coach before the war.

He flew to Poland and then across the border into Ukraine on March 5.

Before long, he loaded a truck with supplies and set off for Kharkiv with a few others, backtracking off the roads and looking for Russian soldiers who could be anywhere.

“It was a ghost town,” he told Sky News in November.

“We were driving on the main highway into Kharkiv from the south and I remember passing one tank on the back of a truck in blizzard-like conditions.

“And there was no one else on the road – this is like the M5 equivalent so it was very strange.

“My guys were like ‘yeah this is getting a little scary now’.”

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5:27 Chris spoke to Sky News in November

“I almost crashed on the first flight to Kharkiv”

This first experience of real war, he said, was “eye-opening”.

He told Sky News in November: “I look back on it very fondly because it was such a huge adventure.

“We broke down a lot and had a lot of issues with the road conditions, got stuck in the snow, and I almost crashed.

“A lot of things happened, but we survived and that’s the most important thing.”

It seems that wherever the battle gets very hot, this is where Chris is headed, determined to save as many people as possible.

He ran out of evacuees from Severodontsk as Russian forces closed in, getting people out of the besieged city before it finally fell in June.

“It was bombed every minute or so,” he said.

“Artillery fired at us…they were watching us”

The time finally came when he made the difficult decision to tell his parents he had been working in Ukraine for weeks, not in Poland as they thought.

He didn’t want to worry them more than he needed to, but he also wanted to tell his story to spread the word about what was happening in Ukraine and how people could help.

In the days following his disappearance, his family have praised his compassion and care for others, and have spoken of their pride in what he does.

Speaking to Sky News about a notable evacuation in the village of East Liman in November, he described the chilling moment when Russian forces came under fire.

“We were being bombarded with artillery because they were watching us with a drone, then waiting for us in the parking lot and then they had a minute or two to try and hit us.

“It hit us a lot. So running to the car with people and trying to get in the car and then driving as fast as possible was high on the priority list.”

Read more: Missing Briton interviewed just days before his disappearance UK considers sending tanks to Ukraine for first time

Saving a family that has been living in a basement for months

In another operation, he described how he and his team rescued a family who had been sheltering for months.

“I was picked up by a woman with four young children, ages 5 to 12, who have been living in the basement of their house under occupation since March.

“The Russians took her husband away, so of course they are very worried about him.

“We eventually got them to safety. They were crying in the car, terrified.

“But when they came here and came out and we got them on a bed with the lights on, they gave me a big hug — they were so happy but at the same time also when the shock really hit them.

“Because there aren’t any more bangs, it’s safe and it’s kind of over. But they’ve left it all behind.”

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