1/ An American citizen who secretly spied for Russia throughout the war in Ukraine, providing Russian forces with targeting information while possibly posing as an aid worker or volunteer, has given a press conference in Moscow explaining why he acted as he did. ⬇️
2/ 34-year-old Daniel Martindale is said by Russian sources to have been in Ukraine since 11 February 2022 and proactively contacted Russian security forces when he arrived. He sent them the coordinates of Ukrainian military facilities, helping them to carry out airstrikes.
3/ He is said, in particular, to have "played a key role in preparing the assault on the village of Bohoiavlenka [north of Vuledar] in late October." The Russians captured the village on 27 October and were filmed raising their flag there.
4/ Martindale communicated using a phone delivered by a Russian drone. He was extracted from the war zone on 27 October 2024 and brought to Donetsk, where he was photographed alongside armed men (presumably the squad that carried out the extraction).
5/ Photos taken by Martindale and published by RIA Novosti suggest that he lived alongside Ukrainians, presumably in the Vuhledar area. He hasn't said what he was doing at the time, but it seems likely that he was working as an aid worker or in some kind of voluntary capacity.
6/ According to Martindale himself, "I was in Poland two years before the war. I was a missionary, and I followed the news in the Western media and realized that there was a high probability that a war would start in Ukraine."
7/ "I had wanted to go to Russia for a long time, and I realized that this was the very moment I had been waiting for."
After having crossed the border, "I wanted to get to Donetsk. I realized that I needed to somehow coordinate my actions with the Russian side."
8/ "I needed to understand where the front line was, where the Russian soldiers were located. I started tracking this through the news, watched various Telegram channels.
9/ "I found a channel that belonged to the [Donetsk People's Republic] territorial defence unit, there was a bot there. I maintained contacts with the Russian side mainly through Telegram. I received messages through this bot."
10/ He says he was motivated to "save the lives of Russian soldiers and to ensure some kind of future for Russians in Ukraine. ... I was able to get a different point of view, not just the information that is broadcast by Western media."
11/ Martindale believes that "this is a war in which one side is fighting for justice, and the other side is interested in promoting its financial interests and is not interested in the well-being of its citizens."
12/ He claims that many Ukrainians "are waiting for liberation by the Russian army. ... We need to hide our sympathy for Russia."
13/ "We need to hide our true intentions, that is, we need to wait, bide our time, ... hide the fact that we are not at all patriotic towards the Kyiv regime. ... You could see how people live with this, and I myself lived with this and also had to hide my thoughts."
14/ He calls for Ukraine to be defeated and disarmed, and its government put on trial "either under Russian law or in accordance with international law, as German war criminals were tried for killing Poles and Jews."
15/ Martindale's VK page says that he was born in 1991, studied at a private university in the US state of Indiana, and knows Russian, Polish, and Chinese. He appears to have travelled to Vladivostok for a sports competition in 2018 and lived in Poland in 2020.
16/ He states that he is a libertarian and is clearly religious, stating his support for the Free Christian Church of the Polish town of Palowice.
17/ After the war, Martindale wants to be a farmer in Russia. He says that he wants to get a Russian passport and won't go back to the US. "Do I want to go back to the US? No. I'm telling you for sure, as far as I understand. Since 2005, I consider the US my enemy." /end
Sources:
🔹 ria.ru/20241102/marti…
🔹 svoboda.org/a/33184915.html
🔹 vk.com/id341388380
More details:
More on his motivation:
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.