Relationships have confirmed the deaths of two U.S. volunteers in Ukraine fighting for Kiev in early December.
Michael Zaherl calls 29-year-old Brian Zaherl his nephew. A Facebook post from Dec. 5 says that Brian Zaherl served in the U.S. Army and helped train Ukrainian soldiers, becoming close to some of them in the process. He has kept in touch with them since leaving the service.
„When he received news that several men had been killed in action, he felt compelled to go back and help them fight. Brian had been killed in action a few days earlier. His wife, Kim, and two children are in Kiev, waiting for conditions to allow them to remove his body from the battlefield. Then they can bring him home,” said Michael Zaherl.
“We are all devastated, but we are so proud. Selfishness seems to be the fashion these days, so Brian’s sacrifice seems a little more heroic. The memory of his kind heart eases our grief a little. What world leaders did or didn’t do didn’t seem to have a direct emotional impact on me. But it does now,“ Zaherl concluded.
Brian Zaherl’s death was confirmed in early December by Executive Security International (ESI), a bodyguard training school based in Colorado. A Facebook post said Zaherl graduated from ESI last spring.
The death of a second American soldier, Ty Wingate Jones, was confirmed by his sister, Amber, also on Facebook, as quoted by Newsweek. According to Jones, her brother was killed in a drone strike on December 3.
According to Newsweek, Jones and Zaherl served in international forces under the command of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, according to posts from accounts apparently representing the intelligence service.
According to The New York Times, at least 92 Americans had been killed in combat in Ukraine by September.
Moscow considers foreign nationals who have joined the Ukrainian armed forces to be mercenaries and legitimate targets. They are being hunted in Russia. In January, American Thomas Patrick Creed was sentenced in absentia to 13 years under Article 359 of the Criminal Code (mercenary participation in an armed conflict).