Moscow In order to help Moscow’s military aggressive in the country, an American who spied Ukrainian soldiers has been provided Russian citizenship, Moscow-installed officials said on Tuesday. According to reports in the Russian state media, Daniel Martindel spent two years in Ukraine after Russia started a full -scale invasion in February 2022 in February 2022.
Dennis Pushilin, head of the Russian part of Ukraine’s Donnetsk region, said, “By the decree of our President Vladimir Putin, a citizen of the Russian Federation was given a passport to Daniel Martindel.”
He said, “He spent more than two years in the area under enemy control. And not only he survived – he helped. He supported our people, passed on important information for our special services, putting their lives at risk,” he said.
Wire/Reuters 
Martindel received his passport from internal ministry officials at a ceremony in Moscow, according to a video published by the state media and Pushilin.
Martindel thanked Russia for “accepting me” and said that becoming a Russian citizen was a “dream”.
“Russia is not only my home, but my family,” he said in Russian on the video.
After spying on Ukraine, two years later, Moscow began to get scared, his life was taken out in a “complex withdrawal operation”, if he stayed at any time, he was in any danger.
In November 2024, the state media reported that Russian security forces had taken him to Russia and Martindel had filed his application for Russian citizenship.
A telegram account said to be posted in the same month: “Hello, I am a Daniel Martindel, the man who was put to risk his life by Russian soldiers to get out of the village where I had been living for two years.”
Around the same time, Martindel told the supporter-Russian bloggers that he had reached Ukraine shortly before the Russia started the attack, which was expected to reach the Ukrainian border region of Donnetsk. Martindel told the bloggers that he had approached Russian intelligence services at his initiative and was asked to go to the city of Wuhaldar and wait for the Russian army to arrive. He said that he lived in the city, pretending to be a missionary until the fall of 2024, when the Russian soldiers seized the city after a long battle.
Ukrainian journalists have found some evidence to suggest that Martindel was admitted by Russian agencies years ago, as he visited Russia between 2016 and 2019, taking university courses. According to some reports, he was deported from Russia in 2019 to violate labor laws.
