A former U.S. Air Force airman who absconded to Russia after being hit with child pornography charges appears to be featured in a Russian propaganda video in which he defends his decision to enlist in the military there.
Wearing military fatigues with a Russian flag patch on the chest and a combat helmet, the veteran, Wilmer Puello-Mota, describes his service in the U.S. Air Force and the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Toward the end of the video, he offers a prediction seemingly intended to please the audience in his adopted country:
“Victory will be ours,” he declares in Russian.
Mr. Puello-Mota, 28, nevertheless defended his patriotism.
“I don’t consider myself a traitor,” he said. “The United States and Russia aren’t at war.”
The former airman, who said he now went by the call sign “Boston,” is a reconnaissance drone operator in the Russian Armed Forces, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Mr. Puello-Mota said he had fought in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine.
In the video, which was posted to the Telegram social media app on Monday by the defense ministry, Mr. Puello-Mota introduces himself to viewers. “I’m Will; I’m from Massachusetts,” he says.
Mr. Puello-Mota served in the U.S. Air Force for six years and had one deployment to Afghanistan before joining the Massachusetts Air National Guard in June 2019, according to his service record. In the Air Force, he obtained the rank of technical sergeant and was a member of the 104th Fighter Wing security forces.
In 2020, Mr. Puello-Mota was charged in Rhode Island with possessing child pornography after reporting that a firearm had been stolen from a hotel room where, he told the police, he had been planning to meet a woman, court records show.
As the investigation continued, the authorities found that the woman was 17. She told them that Mr. Puello-Mota had known she was underage and that he had given her money for explicit images of her.
In an attempt to skirt serious punishment, officials say, Mr. Puello-Mota allegedly forged a military document and faked a call from his superior officer in the Air National Guard purporting to support his continued service. That led to still more charges being filed against him in 2022.
Mr. Puello-Mota failed to appear in court on Jan. 9, 2023. Two days earlier, he had boarded a flight from Dulles International Airport outside Washington that was bound for Istanbul, according to documents from the Rhode Island attorney general’s office.
In a statement, the Massachusetts Air National Guard said that Mr. Puello-Mota’s service was terminated in October 2022. “Criminal activity is not compatible with our values as an organization and will not be tolerated in our ranks,” it said.
Mr. Puello-Mota served one term on the City Council in the Massachusetts city of Holyoke, which tried to remove him once his charges became public, The Boston Globe reported. A day before he was supposed to appear in court, he told his lawyer, John M. Cicilline, that he would not be in attendance.
“He said, ‘I joined the Russian army,’ or something like that,” Mr. Cicilline said in an April interview with The Globe. “I thought he was joking.”
Mr. Cicilline did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Mr. Puello-Mota surfaced in a different video posted to Telegram in April in which he appeared to sign a contract for Russian military service in Khanty-Mansiysk, a city in west-central Russia.
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
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