Michael Gloss, an American citizen and the son of CIA Deputy Director for Digital Innovation Juliane Gallina Gloss, was killed in Ukraine while fighting in the Russian military last year, the independent outlet iStories reported on Friday. He was 21 years old. Gloss’s father, Larry Gloss, is a U.S. Navy veteran and head of Security Information Systems, a company that develops software for the U.S. Department of Defense. Meduza shares an English-language summary of Gloss's story.
Michael Gloss joined the Russian army in 2023 after spending several months traveling around the world. According to iStories, he left the U.S. no later than the winter of 2023, dropping out of college. He moved to Italy, then traveled to Israel before being deported. He spent the next few months in Turkey, attending a gathering of the counter-culture group Rainbow Family of Living Light and volunteering in Hatay Province to help with earthquake relief.
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A friend of Gloss’s who hosted him in Istanbul told iStories that he “was always talking about doom and gloom — poverty, the collapse of civilizations.” According to the friend, Gloss “was convinced that Western hegemony was coming to an end and that BRICS would take its place." Another acquaintance in Turkey recalled that Gloss had been watching videos about Palestine and “was very angry" at the United States. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to fight against the U.S. But I think those conspiracy theory videos really got to him,” the friend said.
Gloss arrived in Russia in August 2023. Before obtaining a visa, he asked people he knew to help him get an official invitation to enter the country. He gave different people varying reasons for the trip, including that he wanted to learn Russian, that he planned to apply for citizenship, and that he had an environmental project he wanted to pursue. According to border control records reviewed by the publication, he crossed into Russia from Georgia on August 12.
Over the next month, Gloss traveled to Vladikavkaz, Taganrog, Volgograd, and Moscow. On September 1, he said his visa would expire in a week, and by September 3, he was looking for places to stay in Vienna and Bratislava. But two days later, on September 5, his name appeared in Russia’s unified military registration system. The address listed was a military enlistment office on Yablochkova Street in Moscow, and his “residence” was listed as medical exam room 302. According to iStories, this address has been previously used by foreigners coming to Moscow to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry to fight in the war.
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In the days that followed, Gloss appeared at the Avangard training center in the Moscow region, according to photos taken at the time. Around then, he created a profile on VKontakte under the name Hamza Ali and joined several groups, including “The Romance of Russian Villages” and “We Are Here from the USSR.” He also shared a video titled “Putin calls for the creation of an independent Palestine,” as well as footage from Israel, accusing Israeli troops of “firing on Israeli civilians” in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, 2023.
After two weeks of training, Gloss’s group — mostly made up of Nepali citizens — was transported by bus to a military unit. He was assigned to the 137th Guards Airborne Regiment (Unit No. 41450) based in Ryazan, iStories found. One of his fellow soldiers said that Gloss “had his own ideas about how he could be useful on the front.” “He studied construction and engineering in college, so all his thoughts were about inventions and innovations,” the soldier said. Gloss was deployed to the front in December 2023. “If I’m not mistaken, after training he was sent to an assault unit,” the soldier added. At the time, the 137th Regiment was operating northwest of Soledar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Michael Gloss was killed on April 4, 2024 according to an obituary published by his family, which did not mention that his death occurred in Ukraine. That same day, a Telegram channel linked to the 106th Airborne Division — which the Ryazan regiment belongs to — reported that the unit was carrying out an offensive near the villages of Rozdolivka and Vesele in the Donetsk region. The exact circumstances of Gloss’s death remain unknown. His funeral took place in the U.S. eight months later, on December 21, 2024. A friend of Gloss’s from the Rainbow Family gathering said she spoke with his sister, who told her the Russian authorities had contacted the family and informed them that Gloss had died in Ukraine.
According to a member of the Rainbow Family, Gloss said he joined the Russian army to obtain citizenship, not to fight. A fellow soldier from his unit in Ryazan said Gloss “was a passionate supporter of Russia and loved it,” but that during the war, “he had no intention of picking up a weapon.” None of Gloss’s family members responded to iStories’s request for comment.