Confirmed death of US veteran
A U.S. Army Special Forces veteran identified as an American citizen was killed in a barrage of shelling by Russia on the city of Bakhmut this week, according to a friend and founder of a nonprofit organization operating in Ukraine.
According to former Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn, founder of the non-profit organization AFG Free operating in Ukraine, former Sergeant Nicholas Maimer was present at a building in Bakhmut before it was destroyed in a barrage of artillery.
According to Mr. Blackburn, the Ukrainians who accompanied Mr. Maimer believed that he was trapped in the collapsed building or had been killed in a barrage of artillery from the Russian army.
An American friend of Mr. Maimer also shared with CNN: "They were in position before the artillery started to be fired at them and the building started to collapse. By that time, most of the Americans and Ukrainians had successfully escaped. Unfortunately, Nick did not make it out of danger."
Confirmation of Mr Maimer's death came after the director of the Wagner private military organization, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a video on Wagner's Telegram channel on Tuesday showing the body of a man he claimed was an American.
Mr. Prigozhin in the video . Photo: brussinf/Telegram.
A pro-Kremlin military blogger, Alexander Simonov, posted the video with the comment “we are moving towards the frontline positions of the Wagner organization in the eastern region of Artyomovsk (the Russian name for Bakhmut)”.
In the video, Mr. Prigozhin examines a body and documents on the body that he believes are American identification papers.
“We will send his body to the United States, we will put this body in a coffin, respectfully cover the coffin with the American flag because he did not die of old age, he died in a war zone and died heroically, right?” Prigozhin said in the video.
One soldier said he had returned fire before being killed. Mr Prigozhin replied: “He returned fire, he died on the battlefield, so we will return his file tomorrow morning.”
Mr. Prigozhin and the Wagner organization regularly post propaganda videos.
CNN has not been able to verify the content of the video, and Maimer's family has not yet responded to requests for comment.
However, Mr. Paul, Mr. Maimer's uncle, confirmed to the Idaho Statesman that the body in the video is Mr. Maimer.
Maimer's decades in the military
According to Mr. Maimer's profile provided to CNN, the man served more than 20 years before retiring in 2018.
He served more than two years in the active duty military, leaving the military in 1998, before joining the US National Guard in November 2000, and serving in three National Guard units before retiring in 2018.
During his years of service, he received medals including the Special Service Medal, the Military Merit Medal, and four Army Achievement Medals.
Paul Maimer told the Idaho Statesman that his nephew was in Ukraine “to do humanitarian work to do good in the world ” and that his family wanted to bring Maimer’s body home for a “proper burial.”
“I believe he deserves to rest in a veterans cemetery. He may not have fought for his country, but he fought for a noble cause.”
Mr. Blackburn also said Wagner's video made him "furious," telling CNN: "I'm not surprised they posted something like that, but it still makes me angry."
Mr. Maimer was in Ukraine in the spring of 2022, and a video he posted on Facebook on May 25, 2022, shows him in the country for three weeks. In the video, Mr. Maimer said he contacted the Mozart Foundation, a Western volunteer organization in Ukraine, but cut off contact because they were “very unprofessional” and did not “pay attention to basic security and things like that.”
He later said he contacted Mr. Blackburn’s organization AFG Free. AFG Free is “a group of volunteer US Special Forces veterans and citizens who conduct evacuation operations and humanitarian assistance services.”
Blackburn told CNN that Maimer and other AFG Free volunteers are focused primarily on providing humanitarian assistance in Ukraine rather than engaging in combat. These activities include evacuating civilians from war zones and delivering food, medicine and uniforms to soldiers fighting.
But Mr Blackburn also said Mr Maimer had been asked to carry out a “review” of the Territorial Guard’s training.
In a video posted on Facebook in May 2022, Mr. Blackburn said he was developing a training program for the Territorial Guard, the reserve component of the Ukrainian military, that would allow him to “save some lives by giving them a good training program.”
“Perry and I and a few others are passing on our experience, and obviously it’s a good thing, that the U.S. Army Special Forces are willing to guide and develop training programs to help them increase their ability to fight and protect themselves. That’s what we’re doing here,” he said in the video.
Mr Maimer's friend said he “operated with a Special Forces mentality: training, guiding, supporting and liberating the oppressed”.
Mr Blackburn confirmed there had been talks about returning Mr Maimer's body to Ukrainian forces before returning it to his family in the US.
Mr. Maimer's friend told CNN that they were "making sure that even though Nick died in a conflict in Ukraine that the United States was not directly involved in, we want to make sure that his special operations activities are respected and handled appropriately."
Blackburn told CNN that Maimer went to work in Ukraine because he “truly believed it was the right thing to do.” Maimer “has a big heart, and is a wonderful person,” Blackburn said, and he wanted to help Ukraine after seeing “the wanton killing of civilians and the need for help from a country that was suddenly drawn into this war.”
“Nick wasn’t there to be a mercenary. He was there to help people. We talked about it a hundred times, we said we don’t need to go fight, we need to help people survive. And he went there for that.”
A US State Department spokesman said on Tuesday they were “aware of reports” of the death of a US citizen and were “seeking more information”.
“Our ability to verify the deaths of US citizens in Ukraine is extremely limited,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman also “expressed condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in Russia’s unprovoked and unjust war with Ukraine” and reiterated that US citizens should not travel to Ukraine.
“We reiterate our message that U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the armed conflict and actions directed toward U.S. citizens in Ukraine by Russian officials, and U.S. citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately if safely possible through commercial or private ground transportation.”
Nguyen Quang Minh (According to CNN)
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