The son of a senior CIA official who fought alongside the Russian army in the Ukraine war died of “massive blood loss” in an artillery barrage, his parents revealed, citing his Russian death certificate.
Michael Gloss, 21, died on April 4, 2024. His death came as a shock to his parents, who knew their son had struggled with mental illness but had no idea he was in Ukraine. They were in “disbelief” when they found out he had been fighting alongside the Russians.
“It was absolutely news to us that he was involved in any military relationship with Russia,” his father, Larry Gloss, told the Washington Post.
He remembered his son as a kind-hearted “Dylan-loving peacenik” who wanted to save the environment and who “would not hurt a flea.”
The younger Gloss was one of the few Americans to have fought with Moscow’s forces in the war against Ukraine.
“He died running to aid a wounded comrade, trying to protect him,” his father said. “That was classic Michael.”
Michael was also the “ultimate anti-establishment, anti-authority young man the minute he came into the world,” his father added.
Things started to shift when Michael hit his teenage years. At around age 17, he started to rebel against the “shared values” Gloss and his wife, Juliane Gallina, the CIA deputy director for digital innovation, embodied.
He went off his medication and his behavior became more erratic, Gloss said. His son often talked about “getting off the grid” and working with WWOOF, an organization that promotes sustainable farming.
He left his Fairfax, Virginia, home at the start of 2023. He went to Italy and worked on farms, eventually making his way to Turkey, where he helped rebuild earthquake-damaged buildings.
In June, he went to the country of Georgia, where he attended a “Rainbow” gathering, a counterculture movement inspired by Woodstock. The gatherings are loose-knit communities of people who meet in remote forests around the world for a week or more and subscribe to communal living and a shared ideology of peace and freedom.
Things became worrisome when his parents got the news via WhatsApp that he had crossed into Russia and was going to meet up with friends.
“We were on guard, skeptical, suspicious,” his father said. “At no point did he suggest or did we suspect he would join the military. Never.”
By September, Michael told his parents he wanted to stay in Russia with his friends. They had no idea their son had been recruited to fight for the Russian army.
When his parents hadn’t heard from him in a while, they tracked his phone and located him in Avangard, a suburb of Moscow that is known for housing a military training center. When they asked him why he was there, he lied.
Three months later, he was sent to the front lines and assigned to an assault unit, according to iStories, which broke the news. They interviewed a Russian soldier in the 137th Airborne Regiment who knew him and said Michael’s unit was in the Donetsk region. On the day he was killed, his division claimed on Telegram that they had advanced toward Bakhmut.
Larry Gloss said he had learned after talking with some of Michael’s friends and other family members that his son wanted to become a Russian citizen and dreamt of building a water purifier to help people who needed clean water.
“I can only attribute it to his mental illness,” he said. “It clearly defies logic.”
Gloss said the news that his son died and that he had fought with the Russians was almost more than he could take.
“I pray he didn’t hurt anyone,” he said.
Michael’s funeral took place in December. An obituary published the month before made no mention of the war in Ukraine, only to say he was “forging his own hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Eastern Europe.”
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The CIA told NBC News that Michael’s death was a “private family matter for the Gloss family — not a national security issue.”
The agency added that the “entire CIA family is heartbroken for their loss.”
