A 21-year-old man who died combating for the Russian army in Ukraine has been recognized because the son of a senior official within the CIA.
Michael Gloss was killed on the entrance line within the japanese Donetsk area in April final yr, Essential Tales, a Russian investigative outlet, reported.
He was the son of Juliane Gallina, the CIA deputy director for digital innovation, and Larry Gloss, a US navy veteran who took half in Operation Desert Storm through the Gulf Warfare of the early Nineteen Nineties.
Michael Gloss (second left) is pictured along with his dad and mom and two sisters
In 2021, Michael Gloss enrolled on the School of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, a liberal arts faculty identified for encouraging college students to work together with nature. The next yr, he was detained by police at a local weather protest in Washington, DC.
On social media and in on-line chats with members of the Rainbow Household, a countercultural group that traces its roots to the activism of the Seventies, Gloss spoke of his disgust with America.
He wrote on Telegram: “Once I lastly discovered how the US political system works, I realised that violence is an integral a part of it.”
On Instagram, he posted an image of himself placing up his finger to the US Capitol. One other publish confirmed a burning American flag.
Gloss places his finger as much as the US Capitol in an Instagram publish
Acquaintances of the previous boy scout and highschool lacrosse participant mentioned he was enraged by Israel’s war in Gaza and had turn out to be an avid client of conspiracy theories.
In accordance with Essential Tales, he advised one pal that Western hegemony was fading and that the longer term can be a “multipolar world” dominated by the Brics nations, a line acquainted from Russian propaganda. Brics is an intergovernmental group comprising Russia, India, China, Iran and several other different nations.
Robed wanderer earned ‘Jesus’ nickname
Earlier than ultimately becoming a member of the Russian military, the long-haired activist wandered by way of Europe and Turkey, generally dressing in a protracted medieval gown and carrying a wood workers.
In April 2023, he travelled to Israel to go to “eco-villages”. Authorities confiscated his belongings and deported him.
In Turkey, now calling himself Hamza, he joined the reduction effort after the earthquake in the Hatay region. He gained a popularity as a nature-loving eccentric at a gathering of the Rainbow Household within the Turkish border city of Kiyikoy, at one level being filmed shepherding deserted chicks right into a cardboard field.
Gloss purchased a protracted, crimson gown in a Turkish clothes store. A pal, Gamze, advised Essential Tales that Gloss purchased all of the bread in a bakery and handed it out to Rainbow attendees and that individuals began to name him “Jesus”.
‘Hungry for blood’
In Might 2023, he wrote on-line: “Mum was telling me I may simply come again any time. She was making an attempt to make me collapse and name her for a ticket house.”
However he mentioned he was set on his path. He mentioned: “I discover myself increasingly alive by the minute. Hungry for blood and glory.
“It will likely be a tragic day for ItthoBa’al [a name he had adopted] when the membership have to be handed on to the following incarnation. However as of now, I might need simply incarnated in time to defeat mortality AND the navy industrial advanced.”
When requested how he deliberate to defeat the latter, he mentioned folks wouldn’t consider him if he mentioned.
Gloss enters Russia
In the summertime of 2023, he travelled by way of Russia, attending a pageant and taking photos in Crimson Sq., sporting a crimson keffiyeh. In early September, he wrote on Telegram that his Russian visa would expire in every week.
By autumn 2023, he obtained a Russian visa in Istanbul and crossed into Crimea.
Gloss’s pose seems to be a nod to the hammer and sickle image of the Soviet Union
By Sept 5, he had enrolled within the Russian navy, and an entry with Michael Alexander Gloss’s knowledge seems within the EMIAS medical database. His handle was listed as that of a medical examination room given to international recruits, Essential Tales reported.
Throughout coaching for the 137th airborne regiment within the metropolis of Ryazan, he advised fellow recruits that he wished to realize Russian citizenship so he may pursue environmental infrastructure tasks within the nation, Essential Tales reported.
Movies posted by Nepalese and different international recruits present Gloss smiling along with his head shaved. He advised “Mert”, a Rainbow Household pal, that he joined to not struggle however to realize a passport.
Gloss (proper) poses with different international recruits
In a single message, he mentioned: “My aim in life is to construct an infrastructure for the oxidation of water in a supercritical state. To place an finish to environmental air pollution and the illnesses and deaths related to air pollution, that’s: most cancers, lymphoma and all of the hormonal issues related to microplastics and estrogens in water.”
Essential Tales spoke to a member of the 137th regiment who mentioned that, after coaching, Gloss was despatched “to the assault models”. He final logged into Telegram in March.
In accordance with an obituary by his household, Gloss died on April 4. On the time, the 137th regiment was combating north-west of Soledar, between the cities of Rozdolivka and Vesele.
The positions had been described as “unfavourable” and the panorama “extreme” in a Telegram publish by the 106th division, which incorporates the 137th regiment. The precise circumstances of Gloss’s loss of life are unclear.
Eight months after his loss of life, Gloss’s household held a funeral for him in Fairfax, Virginia.
Juliane Gallina, Gloss’s mom, is the CIA deputy director for digital innovation
Within the obituary, Gloss’s membership of the Russian military just isn’t talked about. It reads: “Michael was affectionate and curious, with a present for constructing and fondness for nature and all its creatures.
“[He] had a heightened sense of equity… [and] wished the world to be a greater place.
“He knew the names of bushes and crops, liked sleeping below stars, and cooking on an open hearth.
“Together with his noble coronary heart and warrior spirit, Michael was forging his personal hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Jap Europe on April 4 2024.”
Ms Gallina, a navy veteran, joined the CIA in 2019. On LinkedIn, her profile says her present position entails striving “to speed up the digital transformation of my company to keep up strategic benefit for our nation”.
The CIA was contacted for remark.
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