Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Daniel Richard Martindale, a U.S. citizen who reportedly assisted Russian forces during the war in Ukraine. The announcement came through an official decree signed on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martindale, who grew up in China with American missionary parents, first visited Russia as a child and became deeply interested in the country. He later moved to Vladivostok in 2018 to study and teach English, but was deported in 2019 for violating local labor laws. Despite being expelled, he remained committed to returning to Russia and settled in southern Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the lead-up to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Martindale crossed into Ukrainian territory. From there, he allegedly provided pro-Russian forces with key intelligence about Ukrainian military positions in the Donetsk region. His actions reportedly supported Russia\u2019s military efforts, particularly around the town of Kurakhove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Russian officials, Martindale was later extracted from Ukraine by special forces. His loyalty was publicly recognized in Moscow, where Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed leader of Donetsk, presented him with a Russian passport during a televised ceremony. Martindale called Russia not only his home, but his “family,” and pledged his allegiance to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. State Department has not commented on the matter. Martindale is now officially a Russian citizen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Daniel Richard Martindale, a U.S. citizen who reportedly assisted Russian forces during the war in Ukraine. The announcement came through an official decree signed on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worldnews"],"acf":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",640,427,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"digital-newspaper-featured":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee.webp",1000,667,false],"digital-newspaper-list":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"digital-newspaper-thumb":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"digital-newspaper-small":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-150x95.webp",150,95,true],"digital-newspaper-grid":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/250715-Daniel-Martindale-rs-1b49ee-400x250.webp",400,250,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"World News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Daniel Richard Martindale, a U.S. citizen who reportedly assisted Russian forces during the war in Ukraine. The announcement came through an official decree signed on Monday.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2491,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions\/2491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}