Vladimir Putin's regime has showcased an alleged British "traitor" who has taken up arms for Russia in the war with Ukraine, featuring him in a national television broadcast. Moscow has claimed Michael Lee Gareth Jones from Enfield, in north London, has become the latest Brit to join its invasion force.
In a broadcast helmed by top Putin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, the 40-year-old claimed he formerly served in the British Army, and had moved to St Petersburg in 2018, where he married a local. Now, he claims, he is training as a drone pilot with Russia's 61st Marine Brigade, while claiming the "signs of the universe" led him to turn tail on his home country.
Claims of British Army service
Speaking to Solovyov during the broadcast, Jones said he served in the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, which is now part of The Rifles. Jones claimed he left the armed forces after realising "we were the aggressors" while joining the US for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Solovyov asks him during the broadcast whether his "instinct" had "finally brought you into Mother Russia?" He replied: "I followed the signs from the universe and God served me well."
State media claims
TV Zvezda, another Russian channel owned by Putin's defence ministry, claimed Jones decided to "take up arms and fights Nazism". The channel further claimed he wanted to do "just like his grandfather once did" following a visit to the Donbas region of Ukraine, 88 percent of which has been occupied by Russian forces since 2022.
If Jones is as claimed by Russia's propagandist and state-owned networks, it would make him one of a handful who have taken up arms for the aggressor nation. Ben Stimson, 49, from Oldham and Aiden Minnis, 39, from Chippenham, were alleged to have been fighting for a Russian volunteer force, also in the Donbas region, in 2024. The two were understood to have been the first soldiers hailing from the UK to join Putin's army since the invasion was launched.
Previous Brit fighters
Stimson posted videos online mocking British funding of Ukraine's military hardware, where he was seen joking "we've got some British taxpayer's returns" as he held a grenade used by Ukraine's forces. In the video, he posed in army fatigues embroidered with a Russian flag, and said: "I'm back in Russia and I'm back in uniform." The Government at the time branded behaviour by both men "reprehensible".
Jones, who has two daughters born in the UK and a four-year-old son with his Russian wife, has made similarly provocative comments, stating: "I agree with President Putin that we need to cut this cancerous tumour out of Ukraine."
Last week it was confirmed that another Brit, Bradley Townsend, a 33-year-old from South Yorkshire, became the first to die fighting for Russia in its war. The Barnsley man left the UK in April and enlisted alongside Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas, despite a lack of combat experience or eastern European ties. He was granted Russian citizenship alongside Minnis and Stimson for joining up, but was believed to have died by remote-controlled first-person-view drone near Lyman, a city in Donetsk, on June 10.
