A U.S. Air Force veteran who was facing a possession of child pornography charge when he fled the country appears to have confirmed, in a propaganda video released Monday, that he has joined the Russian army. He insisted he is not a traitor.
“I’m Will. I’m from Massachusetts,” Wilmer Puello-Mota, who is also a former City Council member in Holyoke, Massachusetts, said in the five-minute video released by Russia’s Defense Ministry. “My call sign is ‘Boston.'”
Puello-Mota, 28, is serving as a reconnaissance drone operator with the Russian military units fighting the Ukrainians in the Donetsk region, according to the Defense Ministry, which identified him as both an “American with Russian citizenship” and a “former American citizen.”
Instead, he said, “I’m from Boston, Massachusetts, and I served 10 years in the U.S. Air Force, some years in the Massachusetts International Guard, and I did two years as a city councilor.”
Puello-Mota served on the Holyoke City Council from 2021 to 2023 and was aligned with conservative council members who supported former President Donald Trump, the Globe reported.
Halfway through his term, the city tried to kick Puello-Mota off the council after it learned that he had been arrested in May 2020 when police found nude photos and videos on his phone of a 17-year-old girl they said he had gone to meet at a hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island. He was also charged with obstruction of the judicial system, forgery and counterfeiting.
Puello-Mota also blamed the U.S. for the war in Ukraine, said he has a girlfriend, and sounded thrilled to be a member of the Russian army.
“I love these guys,” he said.