Retired Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer - Photo by World Stock Market
WASHINGTON DC (WSAU) – A close friend and the founder of a non-profit organization active in Ukraine has identified the American citizen killed by Russian shelling in the troubled city of Bakhmut this week as a retired US Army Special Forces member.
According to Retired Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn, founder of the non-profit AFGFree, retired Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer was inside a building in Bakhmut that collapsed after being struck by artillery fire while Maimer was posted there.
Ukrainian soldiers who were with Maimer thought he was either killed by a “barrage” of Russian artillery fire or trapped within the collapsing structure.
They moved into position, massive artillery began to fall, and the building began to crumble. Most of the Americans and Ukrainian soldiers there were able to flee but an American acquaintance of Maimer in Ukraine reportedly told CNN that Nick was unable to escape.
Maimer’s death was confirmed after the leader of the Russian private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to display the body of an American in a video released on the Wagner Telegram group late last week.
A close family member of Maimer’s confirmed to the Idaho Statesman that the body in the video was indeed Maimer’s.
According to his service record provided to CNN, Maimer had more than 20 years of military service before retiring in 2018.
He joined the National Guard in November 2000 and served for over 18 years between three different Guard units before retiring in December 2018. He also spent over two years on active duty in the U.S. Army.
In an interview with The Statesman, his uncle Paul Maimer explained that his nephew had traveled to Ukraine “as a humanitarian trying to do good for this world” and that the family wished to bring him back for a “proper burial.”
A spokesperson for the US State Department said they were “aware of the reports” of the death of a US citizen and were “seeking additional information.”
“Our ability to verify reports of deaths of US citizens in Ukraine is extremely limited,” the official stated on Tuesday.
The spokesperson further stressed that Americans shouldn’t visit Ukraine and expressed “condolences to the families of all whose lives have been lost as a result of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine.”
Last weekend, as Kyiv made its biggest breakthrough in six months ahead of an anticipated counteroffensive, the Russian military and the Wagner private army both reported that Russian forcers are currently falling back from the city of Bakhmut.
This comes after months of modest Russian gains in the worst ground battle in Europe since World War Two, Ukrainian forces close to the front line said that Russia was bombing access routes to stymie Ukrainian advances.
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