A retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was reportedly killed during an artillery barrage in eastern Ukraine after traveling to the country to help train volunteers in their efforts to stave off the invasion by Russia.
Retired Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer, 45, of Boise, Idaho, a former Green Beret, died in Bakhmut after Russian artillery hit a building he was in, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn, the Idaho Statesman reported. In May 2022, Maimer traveled to Kyiv to join up with Blackburn, the founder of the nonprofit AFGFree, which worked to get supplies into Ukraine and organized evacuations.
Blackburn told the Statesman that Maimer “was providing them [Ukrainians] with firsthand training in that area so that they can continue to do the fight, and he got caught behind enemy lines. It’s just a crazy, crazy time right now. And then having Nick die over there, it’s just brutal.”
An unnamed American friend of Maimer’s in Ukraine told CNN that “They got in the position that they were, artillery started coming in heavy and the building started to collapse. That’s when most of the Americans and Ukrainians there were able to escape. Unfortunately, Nick was not able to escape.”
CNN reported a pro-Russian military blogger posted a video on Telegram showing Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private mercenary company Wagner Group, surveying a body in what appears to be Bakhmut. U.S. documents belonging to Maimer appear to be shown in the video. Blackburn and Maimer’s uncle, Paul Maimer, each identified the body in the video as Maimer’s, the Statesman reported.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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