The man was a Christian missionary and spent months in a village near the front, secretly collecting intel on Ukrainian military
© RT RT has spoken exclusively with a US citizen who spent months secretly collecting intelligence on the Ukrainian military in Donbass and handing it over to Russia. Daniel Martindale, who was there as a missionary, revealed that before moving to Ukraine in February 2022, he had resided in a “small Polish village where there’s a Protestant church, and I was working with children in summer camps, teaching them English, but of course with the whole Christian theme.” When asked what prompted him to move to the neighboring country, he said: “Probably the biggest motivation was my desire to be in Russia if and when World War III starts.” Martindale stayed in Ukraine for two years, spending most of his time in a village located not far from the front line in Donbass which has since been liberated by the Russian military. The man eventually managed to get in touch with his handlers and was safely evacuated into Russian-controlled territory when the community fell to Moscow’s advancing forces.
He recounted that while he had exercised due diligence to keep his activities secret, Ukrainian authorities never once checked the contents of his mobile phone. He surmised that his status as a US citizen, coupled with the assistance he was providing to the local community could have contributed to this apparent lack of suspicion. However, the American missionary went on to add that at least some of Ukrainian troops and special services operatives seemed to know “instinctively” that he was on Russia’s side, only they lacked any hard evidence to put the heat on him at the time. According to Martindale, at one point “Ukrainian artillery was basically firing from my backyard.” He said he had been collecting whatever information he could gather and relayed it to the Russians, noting that it was “most of the time probably insufficient.” While refusing to disclose what kind of information he was providing to Russian forces, Martindale said that the “main purpose of it was to try to minimize the losses among civilians and [Russian] soldiers.” The man claimed that judging by his interactions with Ukrainian soldiers over the past six months, “they were beginning to understand that they were just being used, that it’s a losing battle.” He also claimed that in the village where he was staying, there were civilians “who really were waiting for Russia to come.” They supposedly believed that Moscow’s forces would be able to restore law and order there.
