Heartbreak for CIA Director as she finds out her son died while fighting for Russia

Pictures show the CIA deputy director’s son who – unbeknownst to his mother and father – was fighting for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.

The death of Michael Gloss, 21, occurred in April of the previous year during the war, but the circumstances surrounding it have only come to light recently following an inquiry carried out by the independent Russian news source iStories.

Photos showing him wearing camouflage and hanging out with soldiers have emerged.

His mother, Julianne Gallina Gloss, is the Central Intelligence Agency’s deputy director for digital innovation.

His father, Larry Gloss, is a US Navy veteran who participated in Operation Desert Storm and the Iraq War. 

In the wake of his son’s death, Larry described him to the Washington Post as a ‘peacenik’ who ‘wouldn’t hurt a flea.’ 

In an obituary penned by his family, Michael was described as possessing a noble heart and a warrior’s spirit, having carved his own path as a hero before his tragic demise in Eastern Europe on April 4, 2024. Surprisingly, the obituary did not mention his affiliation with the Russian army.

The family learned about their son’s death in June and conducted a funeral service for him in December, as reported by The Washington Post. Despite this, it was not until Friday that the revelation of his service in the Russian military came to light when iStories released their article.

The CIA said Gallina and her family ‘suffered an unimaginable personal tragedy in the spring of 2024 when her son Michael Gloss, who struggled with mental health issues, died while fighting in the conflict in Ukraine.’

Michael had reportedly stopped taking his medication years ago and had started going ‘off the grid.’  

The intelligence agency ‘considers Michael’s passing to be a private family matter for the Gloss family – not a national security issue.’

It was with ‘disbelief and devastation’ that his parents discovered from the State Department that their son had been killed from a ‘massive blood loss’ in an artillery barrage in Donetsk region fighting for Putin’s forces. 

‘It was absolutely news to us that he was involved in any military relationship with Russia,’ his father told The Washington Post.

His father said: ‘He died running to aid a wounded comrade, trying to protect him. That was classic Michael.’

He had gone to Russia after visiting ex-Soviet republic Georgia.

Michael had left his Virginia home in January 2023 to travel to Italy to work on farms and Turkey to help with earthquake restoration. He then went to Georgia, where he attended the Rainbow Family counterculture movement. 

He then went to Russia, where he told his parents he was meeting friend, his father said. 

His parents were ‘on guard, skeptical, suspicious’ but ‘at no point did he suggest or did we suspect he would join the military. Never,’ Larry told The Washington Post. 

Michael told his parents he wanted to stay in Russia in September 2023 and by December 2023, he had been shipped off to Ukraine to fight in the war, iStories found. 

When his parents tracked his phone after his arrival in the totalitarian country, they discovered he was in Avangard, which does military training. He denied he had joined, The Post said. 

Michael had said that he wanted to get Russian citizenship but his parents believe that his ‘mental illness’ was a factor in his decisions about fighting for Putin’s forces.

They were worried that the Russians would twig who his mother was.

‘Our biggest fear while we were waiting for him to be repatriated was that someone over there [in Moscow] would put two and two together and figure out who his mother was, and use him as a prop,’ Larry told The Washington Post.

Michael apparently believed that Russia would let him fulfil his dream of building a water purifier to help people who had no access to clean water.

‘I can only attribute it to his mental illness,’ Larry told the newspaper. ‘It clearly defies logic.

‘If you knew our son, he was the ultimate antiestablishment, anti-authority young man the minute he came into the world.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to Gallina for comment.