Fugitive American Insists He’s Not a Traitor in New Kremlin Propaganda Video

A former Massachusetts city councilor who fled the U.S. before his trial on child abuse material charges insists he’s not a traitor for joining the Russian military.

Wilmer Puello-Mota , who allegedly fled the country in January two days before his trial was set to begin, appeared in a video Monday released by the Russian Defense Ministry that described him as one of their reconnaissance drone operators. The disgraced former member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard previously appeared in Russian media reports in April as he signed paperwork at a military registration office in Khanty-Mansiysk.

“I’m Will, I’m from Massachusetts, Boston,” Puello-Mota says in the Defense Ministry video released on Telegram. The ministry says he’s part of a motorized rifle unit in Moscow’s Center group of forces and goes by the callsign “Boston.”

“The guys get a laugh out of it, they get a kick out of it,” Puello-Mota says in the footage. “Well, we were sitting down and trying to figure out what my pozyvnoy [callsign] should be, and one of them said: ‘Oh, you’re from Boston, it should be Boston!’ I was like: ‘OK, da , I like it!”

Puello-Mota does not disclose his full name in the footage but does confirm biographical details including his previous service in the U.S. Air Force and the Massachusetts National Air Guard. He also says he spent two years as “a city councilor,” referring to his time as an elected official in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

“When I got involved in politics, I zoomed out into the international level of politics, and you really kind of stop and pause and think about what’s going on here and you feel like you have to do something about it,” he says in the clip. Puello-Mota adds that he arrived in Russia in January.

At no point in the video does he mention the criminal case he allegedly fled, however.

Puello-Mota was arrested in Rhode Island in 2020 after he called the cops to report his firearm had been stolen, only for arriving police to find nude images of a 17-year-old girl on his phone. He was charged with one count of having sexually explicit images of a child, and later faced further charges over his alleged attempts to deceive prosecutors and commanders about his case.

Puello-Mota reached a deal to plead guilty to all of the charges to receive an 18-month prison sentence, his lawyer previously told The Boston Globe . But on Jan. 8, the day before he was set to plead guilty in Rhode Island, Puello-Mota informed the attorney he’d joined the Russian army. Prosecutors say he’d boarded a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, a day earlier.

His stunned former colleagues in April confirmed they recognized him in videos appearing in Russian media. A Russian government insider previously told The Daily Beast they believed the Russian Defense Ministry was “aware” of the charges Puello-Mota faced in the U.S.

In the ministry’s video, Puello-Mota brags about how he’s been able to apply some of his skills learned in the U.S. Air Force in the service of the Kremlin during Russian President Vladimir Putin ’s ongoing war in Ukraine .

“The United States has done things that are very provocative, very bad,” he says in the clip. “It’s been involved in other people’s politics, other nations’ interests, and it should not be doing that.”

He also mentioned the upcoming U.S. presidential election and implored “people to just, you know, do their own research” and read “independent news outlets and understand what’s really going on here.”

“I don’t consider myself a traitor,” Puello-Mota says. “The United States and Russia aren’t at war and you know in the future, I think that the people that caused this in my country should be held responsible for what they’ve done and we can have some sort of friendship between Russia and the United States.”

Puello-Mota also praised his new Russian comrades in the video, describing them as “too kind.” “They teach me Russian,” he says. “They help me to deal with, you know, my girlfriend, [quoting in Russian] ‘Difficult, difficult, girls.’” They help me to navigate all the complexities and the cultural differences.”

The clip ends with a smiling Puello-Mota saying in Russian: “Victory will be ours!”

Read more at The Daily Beast.