{"id":160216,"date":"2024-08-21T09:05:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T13:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=160216"},"modified":"2024-08-21T09:16:33","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T13:16:33","slug":"former-guardsmen-now-a-drone-pilot-for-the-russian-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=160216","title":{"rendered":"Former Guardsman now a drone pilot for the Russian Army"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-147600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers-333x333.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Police-in-barracks-interviewing-soldiers.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We talked about Wilmer Puello-Mota, 28, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=155439\">here<\/a>, when he fled the United States to avoid facing child pornography related charges. His lawyers even worked out a plea deal. However, Puello-Mota left the United States before he was due to show up in court. He operates drones for the Russian Army and is apparently happy with the Russian soldiers he works with. His Russian commander is happy with Puello-Mota&#8217;s efforts. Puello-Mota believes that he is not a traitor for what he is doing.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>From military.com:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Air Force&#8217;s records show that Puello-Mota joined in June 2013 and left active duty six years later in 2019 as a security forces staff sergeant. Air National Guard officials previously confirmed to Military.com that Puello-Mota went on to become a technical sergeant with the Massachusetts Air National Guard but that he was separated in October 2022 following his criminal charges.<\/p>\n<p>Air Force records show that Puello-Mota did deploy to Afghanistan once and earned two Air Force Achievement medals.<\/p>\n<p>When Don Veitch, a spokesperson for the 104th Fighter Wing in Massachusetts, told Military.com in an email in April that &#8220;criminal activity is not compatible with our values as an organization and will not be tolerated in our ranks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the Russian defense ministry, Puello-Mota is now a reconnaissance drone operator; he himself said he is part of the 137th Brigade.<\/p>\n<p>Puello-Mota made no mention of his outstanding legal charges or the fact that his travel to Moscow in January took state officials by surprise.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents provided to Military.com by the office of the Rhode Island attorney general, Puello-Mota boarded a flight Jan. 7, two days before he was supposed to be in court regarding his charges, and flew from Dulles International Airport in Virginia for Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>In Monday&#8217;s video, he said that he arrived in Russia in January and &#8220;spent some time in Moscow&#8221; before serving in an international brigade in the Ukrainian province of Donetsk for three months.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Additional reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Toropin, K. (2024, August 19). Former guardsman who fled to Russia is now a drone pilot in Putin&#8217;s army, says he&#8217;s not a traitor. <em>Military.com<\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2024\/08\/19\/former-guardsman-who-fled-russia-now-drone-pilot-putins-army-says-hes-not-traitor.html\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We talked about Wilmer Puello-Mota, 28, here, when he fled the United States to avoid facing &hellip; <a title=\"Former Guardsman now a drone pilot for the Russian Army\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=160216\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Former Guardsman now a drone pilot for the Russian Army<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,185,384,640,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-crime","category-russia","category-ukraine","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}