MOSCOW (Reuters) – A U.S. citizen who was spirited out of eastern Ukraine by Russian special forces after helping the Kremlin target Ukrainian troops said in Moscow on Saturday he had asked for Russian citizenship.
“My name is Daniel Martindale,” he told a press conference, state media reported.
“Here is my passport. It went through the war with me, you can see in what condition it is,” he said in English, holding up what appeared to be a well-used U.S. passport and birth certificate.
He said he was under no duress, wanted to receive Russian citizenship and predicted Russia would win the war in Ukraine.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow did not immediately comment.
Martindale, who said he had worked as a missionary, said he entered Ukraine from Poland in early 2022, just days before President Vladimir Putin ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine.
“I’ve wanted to go to Russia for a long time, I realized that this is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he was quoted as saying.
An unidentified Russian intelligence source quoted by the RIA state news agency said Martindale had supplied information to Russian forces about the location of key Ukrainian infrastructure for two years.
No further detail on the information he gave to Russia was disclosed.
Martindale said that while in Ukraine, he had established contact with pro-Russian forces via Telegram and passed them information from Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces had even delivered a telephone to him with a drone, the Izvestia newspaper reported.
“For the last two years, I have done everything to save the lives of Russian soldiers and ensure some kind of future for Russians in Ukraine. I would like to continue doing this,” he said.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
