21-year-old American Michael Gloss, who signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, died during the Russian-Ukrainian war, Important Stories found out .
Michael Gloss is the son of American military personnel. His mother, Julian Gloss, is the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, and his father, Larry Gloss, is a veteran of the United States Navy and the head of Security Information Systems, a company that creates software, including for the US Department of Defense.
Michael Gloss joined the Russian military in 2023 after traveling the world for several months. As Important Stories has learned, Gloss left the United States no later than the winter of 2023, dropping out of college. He first lived in Italy, then went to Israel, from where he was deported. He spent the next few months in Turkey, where he attended the Balkan Gathering, a gathering of the Rainbow Family community , and helped with earthquake relief in Hatay Province.
An acquaintance of Gloss, with whom he stayed in Istanbul, told Important Stories that the American “constantly talked about all sorts of negative things – about poverty, about the collapse of civilizations.” “He was convinced that the hegemony of the West was leaving and that it would soon be replaced by BRICS ,” the source told the publication. Another acquaintance of Gloss in Turkey said that Gloss watched videos about Palestine and “was very angry at America.” “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to fight the United States. But in my opinion, he was greatly influenced by videos with conspiracy theories,” the source told the publication.
Michael Gloss arrived in Russia in August 2023. Before receiving a Russian visa, Gloss asked his friends to help him get an invitation to the Russian Federation. He explained why he was going to Russia in different ways: he told some that he wanted to learn Russian, others that he intended to obtain citizenship, and still others that he wanted to develop his environmental project. He crossed the border between Georgia and Russia on August 12, according to border service data reviewed by the publication.
Over the course of a month, Gloss visited Vladikavkaz, Taganrog, Volgograd, and Moscow. On September 1, Gloss reported that his visa would expire in a week, and on September 3, he began looking for housing in Vienna and Bratislava. Two days later, on September 5, data on Michael Gloss appeared in the EMIAS system : the address listed was a recruitment point for contract service in the Russian army on Yablochkova Street, and the “apartment” was a medical examination room number 302. As the publication notes, this address was given to foreigners who came to Moscow to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry to participate in the war.
Michael Gloss spent the following days at the Avangard training center in the Moscow region, as can be seen from photographs taken at the center at that time. At the same time, Gloss created an account on VKontakte under the name Hamza Ali and joined several groups, including “Romanticism of Russian Villages” and “We Are from the USSR.” He also posted a video titled “Putin Announces the Need to Create an Independent Palestine,” as well as a video from Israel, in the caption of which he accused the Israeli military of “shooting at Israeli civilians” in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023.
After two weeks of training, Michael Gloss’s group, mostly Nepalese citizens, was taken by bus to a military unit. He ended up in the 137th Airborne Regiment (military unit 41450) in Ryazan, Important Stories found out. One of Gloss’s fellow soldiers said that the American had “his own vision of how he could be useful at the front.” “He studied construction and engineering in college, so all his thoughts were connected with inventions and innovations,” the fellow soldier said. Gloss left for the front in December 2023. “If I’m not mistaken, after training he was sent to the assault units,” the fellow soldier said. At that time, units of the 137th Regiment were located northwest of Soledar in the Donetsk region.
Michael Gloss died on April 4, 2024, his family said in an obituary, without mentioning that it happened in Ukraine. That day, the Telegram channel of the 106th Division, which includes the Ryazan regiment, reported that the paratroopers were conducting an offensive near Razdolovka and Vesyole in the Donetsk region. The exact circumstances of Gloss’s death are unknown. His funeral took place in the United States eight months later, on December 21, 2024. Gloss’s friend from the Balkan Gathering, who spoke with his sister, said that Russian authorities contacted the American’s family and stated that he died in Ukraine.
One of the Rainbow Family members said that Gloss told him that he joined the Russian army to get a Russian passport, not to fight. A fellow American soldier in Ryazan said that Gloss “was an ardent supporter of Russia and loved it,” and that he “had no intention of taking up arms” during the war. None of the deceased’s family members responded to Important Stories’ requests for interviews.