The Ukrainian town where a Kiwi aid worker has gone missing is now in Russian hands.
Andrew Bagshaw was helping evacuate people from Soledar, a town that has been destroyed. He's now been missing for more than three days.
The search for 48-year-old Kiwi Bagshaw missing in Ukraine entered its fourth day on Wednesday.
Bagshaw's translator Grzegorz Rybak told RNZ "everybody is looking for him".
"The police is looking for him, the army is looking for him, he has gained huge respect."
Ukrainian Police have confirmed Bagshaw and his UK counterpart, 28-year-old Christopher Parry, left the city of Kramatorsk on January 6.
The pair were heading to Soledar, which is now in Russian hands. No one knows where he is or what's happened to him.
Law Professor Alexander Gillespie said it is a crime of war to attack humanitarian workers.
"Part of the problem you've got here, even though you've got rules, increasingly this war in Ukraine is becoming muddy. Even though one side might be saying something, we are seeing the targeting of aid workers."
Bagshaw's translator, who said he'd been living with Bagshaw for two weeks, hopes his friend is in hiding.
"I hope that he will be found in some cellar somewhere, we don't know we can only guess. I don't say it's optimistic but, of course, hope does last," Rybak told RNZ.
In a recent address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked those fighting in Soledar and for withstanding the tough assaults, which have left almost no walls standing.
Bagshaw is the son of prominent Christchurch doctors, Philip and Susan Bagshaw. In a statement earlier this week, they said their son is an intelligent man who felt a moral duty to go and help.
