
Dominic Bryce Abelen has been described as a “warrior until the end”. He is also New Zealand’s first serving soldier to be killed fighting in Ukraine. His death puts renewed focus on the status of foreign fighters in that war.
Abelen was off duty from the Royal NZ Infantry Regiment’s 2/1 Battalion and one of many former or current New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) soldiers in Ukraine. Like other volunteers, he will have felt a strong ethical duty to be there and believed he was defending a country against an indiscriminate and inhumane aggressor.