'Defector' Brit Supporting Putin in Ukraine Featured on Russian TV as Moscow Celebrates New Recruit

A NEW British “traitor” has joined up to fight for Putin against Ukraine — and is being trumpeted by Moscow.

Michael Lee Gareth Jones, 40, is training as an FPV drone pilot with Russia’s 61st Marine Brigade.

He was lauded on Russian TV just days after fisherman , 33, was confirmed as the first British mercenary to be

Jones, who is from Enfield, North London, moved to St Petersburg in Russia in 2018 where he married a Russian.

On state TV, top telly propagandist Vladimir Solovyov asked Jones, who was in the Army: “So you served in the British Royal Forces?”

Jones said he served in the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, now part of The Rifles.

He said: “They don’t exist anymore. The downsized.” Jones said he left after a year after he realised “we were the aggressors” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Solovyov asked: “So your instinct finally brought you into Mother ?”

He replied: “I followed the signs from the universe and God served me well.”

According to TV Zvezda, a Russian Defence Ministry-owned channel, Jones decided to “take up arms and fight Nazism, just like his grandfather once did” after visiting Ukraine’s largely occupied Donbas region.

Jones, who has two UK-born daughters and a son, four, with his Russian wife, said: “I agree with that we need to cut this cancerous tumour out of Ukraine.”

TV Zvezda said Jones chose to join up as he “wanted to defend his family and Russia, which he considers his country”.