A Russian media outlet has detailed how a boy scout from a militant family grew up to be an ecologist and eventually a foot soldier for Putin’s army who died in Ukraine.

April 25, 2025

Michael Gloss, son of CIA Deputy Director of Digital Innovation Juliane Gloss, died aged 21 while fighting for Moscow in Ukraine in April 2024.

Russian investigative outlet iStories, citing Gloss’s acquaintances, has pieced together Gloss’s life and detailed how a boy scout-turned-ecologist joined a hippie community in Europe before becoming a foot soldier in the Russian army who met his end in eastern Ukraine.

Gloss’s mother, Juliane Gallina Gloss, was appointed to one of the top positions in the CIA in February 2024, two months before Gloss’s death. Gloss’s father, Iraq War veteran Larry Gloss, worked at a security firm with US military contracts.

According to iStories, Gloss departed the US “no later than the winter of 2023” and was traveling extensively in Europe before joining a hippie community called the Rainbow Family, through whose members the outlet obtained many of the accounts about Gloss’s journey.

Anti-capitalism but pro-imperialism

While messages by Gloss, seen by iStories, have shown his criticism of the US and capitalism, the reason for his trip to visit was less clear-cut.

In one message, Gloss described himself as “a traveler who wants to learn Russian through immersion,” while in another, he said he wanted to “help create infrastructure in Russia and related countries that grow food year-round.”

Other messages also parroted talking points of Russian propaganda – including praises of Russia’s imperialist approach Gloss said could “[bring] peace through military victory.”

“But I know enough history to know that in conflicts between nations, it is the larger, imperialist nation that brings peace through military victory,” Gloss said in a Rainbow Family chat.

Gloss’s page on Russian social media – where he called himself Hamza Ali – also mirrored Moscow’s narrative.

“A supporter of a multipolar world. I hate fascism,” he wrote in his profile description.

Becoming Moscow’s foot soldier

The outlet, citing border records, said Gloss entered Russia sometime before August 2023 via Georgia, after volunteering in Turkey following the earthquake that same year.

While Gloss was recorded traveling extensively in Russia, acquaintances of Gloss quoted by iStories said he encountered financial difficulties in part due to issues accessing his foreign accounts as a result of the Western sanctions on Russia.

Gloss is believed to have enlisted in the Russian army in September 2023, when his name was listed in the official registry with an address usually “given to foreigners who came to Moscow to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry and went to fight in Ukraine,” according to iStories.

Photos of Gloss on a local dating site confirmed that he was at the base of the 137th Airborne Regiment (military unit 41450) in Ryazan sometime in October. A soldier from the unit told iStories that Gloss had “his own vision of how he could be useful at the front,” where they reportedly sent letters together to a local institute “with “[Gloss’s] inventions and innovations.”

The man said Gloss left for the front in December 2023, where his unit subsequently took part in assaults in Ukraine’s Donetsk region near Razdolovka and Vesyole.

Gloss met his end sometime in April during the offensive, and his family was informed of his death in October 2024, six months after his presumed death, according to members of the Rainbow Family.

Gloss’s obituary said his memorial service took place on Dec. 21, 2024. It did not mention that he died fighting for Russia.

“With his noble heart and warrior spirit Michael was forging his own hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Eastern Europe on April 4, 2024,” it reads.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/51486