{"id":326091,"date":"2025-08-07T20:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T20:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326091\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T20:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T20:31:12","slug":"british-father-killed-by-drone-while-fighting-in-ukraine-wife-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326091\/","title":{"rendered":"British father killed by drone while fighting in Ukraine, wife says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Williams left his wife and their 12-year-old daughter in the UK on 7 May to travel  Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The family said they lost contact with him on 2 July after he set off on a mission, and were later told on 14 July he was listed as missing action, and two weeks later a member of his unit confirmed he had died. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ms Boyce-Williams told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/live\/bbc_radio_merseyside\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC Radio Merseyside<\/a>: &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said she and others in the family had tried to convince her husband not to go to fight but he was determined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We were all absolutely devastated when he told us [he was going to fight],&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But he was such a strong-willed man that once he got something in his mind there was no way you were changing it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He wanted to help civilians, especially the children,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Williams left his wife and their 12-year-old daughter in the UK on 7 May to travel Ukraine.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-326091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114989386001902594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}