With a big assist from Ukrainian comrades, the body of an Idaho Special Forces veteran was en route to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv — American soil — on Friday in time for Memorial Day.
Nick Maimer was killed in the embattled city of Bakhmut on May 15 or 16. After traveling to Europe, he was drawn to Ukraine when Russia invaded. He was performing humanitarian work and training defense forces when he was killed in the intense fighting.
After his death, he was featured in a propaganda video posted by the Wagner Group, a mercenary group that works alongside the Russian military. The group handed over his remains after another American veteran operating in Ukraine says he helped broker a deal.
Read Next: Navy SEAL Instructors ‘Hunted’ Weaker Candidates Amid Poor Medical Care, Drug Use
“We’re happy to have him coming back so soon,” Zac Feuerborn, Nick’s cousin, told Military.com. “We had just accepted that the process might take months. And then we were told that he was on his way to the embassy.”
Maimer, like other American veterans, was attracted to the Ukrainians’ struggle to remain free against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to stamp out the government in Kyiv and take the country for his own.
Maimer’s work included training Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces soldiers and helping the people who elected to stay in Bakhmut regardless of the fighting — overwhelmingly, older people with no place else to go, or…
