A British father who volunteered to fight in Ukraine has been killed in a Russian drone strike, his wife has been told.
Alan Williams, 35, from Moreton, Wirral, left for the country on May 7 having lost his job and despite having no military experience.
His wife, Stephanie Boyce-Williams, 40, said a member of his unit had contacted her to say he had been killed in the Kharkiv region. He had been listed as missing in action since July 14, having set off on a mission on July 2.
Williams with his wife, Stephanie Boyce-Williams
Official confirmation has yet to take place, leaving the family “in limbo”, Boyce-Williams said.
She told BBC Radio Merseyside: “I was sitting at home with my oldest son when I got the text through to say they had important information and could they call me, so I knew instantly.”
She said the family had tried to convince Williams not to fight but that he could not be dissuaded.
She said: “We spent time trying to convince him not to go, telling him how it would affect us and how it would impact our daughter, and everything else back home. But he was such a strong-willed man that once he got something in his mind there was no way you were changing it. He wanted to help civilians, especially the children.”
• How Ukraine uses fishing nets to protect troops from Russian drones
The couple, who have a 12-year-old daughter, had been in contact every day, but Boyce-Williams said his tone was different in their last phone call. In the same call, he asked for permission to put down her mother as an emergency contact.
His last text message read: “I want to be straight with you, this is dangerous.”
Boyce-Williams said she became particularly concerned after three days had passed — the time frame Williams had originally provided for the mission — and began to check her phone obsessively every day.
The Foreign Office said it was “supporting the family of a British man who is missing in Ukraine, and are in contact with the local authorities”.