A married British father was tragically killed on his first mission in Ukraine after volunteering to fight, his wife has confirmed.
Alan Robert Williams, 35, had moved from his home in Moreton, Merseyside, on May 7, to fight the invading Russian forces in Kharkiv after losing his job and being admitted to hospital for struggles around his mental health.
He went despite having no military experience and his family’s insistence he stay.
His wife, Stephanie Boyce-Williams, 40, confirmed that he was killed in a Russian drone strike one month after signing up after she and their 12-year-old daughter pleaded with him not to go.
The former school site manager signed his military contract on June 10, and his family lost contact with him just over three weeks later on July 2.
Comrades in his unit contacted Mrs Boyce-Williams, a civil servant and call handler, to say he had been killed by a Russian drone while trying to receive foreign officers.
Sources have said that Mr Williams was targeted by four Russian drones, which dropped from a mortar 20ft from the team near the recaptured village of Lyptsi, just six miles from the Russian border.
His team said he was immediately unresponsive and they had to leave his body behind as they fled the ambush.
On July 14, Mr Williams was officially declared as Missing in Action because his body has not yet been recovered.
Devastated Mrs Boyce-Williams said she had remained ‘in limbo’ waiting for confirmation of his death.
She told BBC Radio Merseyside: ‘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.
‘But he was such a strong-willed man that once he got something in his mind there was no way you were changing it. He wanted to help civilians, especially the children.’
Mr Williams had lost his job earlier this year before being admitted to hospital for struggles around his mental health.
After being discharged, he signed up to fight for Ukraine because he ‘couldn’t sit back and watch’.
The father-of-one underwent training and his mental health appeared to be on the mend, but Mrs Boyce-Williams’ fears began to grow.
‘He was such a strong-willed man that once he got something in his mind there was no way you were changing it,’ she said, adding that he especially wanted to help the children in Ukraine.
The heartbroken wife said she had been in touch with her husband every day since he had left for the war-torn country, but she knew something was different the last time she spoke to him.
‘I could tell by the tone of his voice when he phoned me to ask permission for me to put my mum down as an emergency contact that there was a bit more to it,’ she said.
Mrs Boyce-Williams added that he had explained to her in his last text that: ‘I want to be straight with you this is dangerous’.
After she had received the call from his unit, the mother-of-three was unsure what to believe.
But a subsequent call on July 30 from a man who was with her husband from the moment he arrived in Ukraine and was on his last mission confirmed he had died.
For Mr Williams to be officially declared dead, his body needs to be retrieved or Boyce-Williams can apply to the Ukrainian courts in six months’ time to have him declared officially deceased.
The process can only be carried out in Ukraine by submitting documentation in Ukrainian and has left the devastated wife unable to claim any money.
She told the Liverpool Echo: ‘We have lost Alan’s wage completely which was half of our bills. I can’t claim anything with regards to being a widow until he is officially declared.
‘I am not entitled to anything. I earn too much to claim any single person benefit and I have two adult children who count towards people in my house so I can’t claim anything at all.’
A Foreign Office spokesman has said they were ‘supporting the family of a British man who is missing in Ukraine, and are in contact with the local authorities’.