My son has disappeared off the face of the earth fighting for Russia

British man Nathan Stobbart has been declared missing in action while fighting for Russia in Ukraine. He kept his military service a secret from his family in the UK, who are now desperately trying to find him.

In December 2025, Nathan's mother Valerie Stobbart received a text message that plunged her life into turmoil.

It was from her panic-stricken daughter-in-law, Ksenia, who lives in Russia with Valerie's 30-year-old son and the couple's newborn baby. Nathan had been fighting for the country against Ukraine and had vanished.

"I can't even describe it," Valerie says.

"I remember walking in and telling Sean [Valerie's partner], and we were just both in total shock."

Her son had told her he was working as an electrical contractor and she had no idea he had joined the Russian army in April last year.

"You think that somebody is living this lovely little life with a new family and then suddenly you find out that they've gone, they're missing," she says.

"They've completely disappeared off the face of the earth."

Nathan's voice was last heard on his military radio a week before Ksenia's message.

A Russian army document, seen by the BBC, shows he was officially declared missing in action by his unit on 12 December but no body has been found.

Valerie says Ksenia revealed the Russian authorities had warned Nathan he would not be granted a visa to remain in the country and faced deportation if he did not sign up for a year's military service.

Russian media has previously reported foreign men in the country have been forced to join the invasion in Ukraine in return for citizenship.

Valerie does not agree with her son's decision to fight but accepts he faced a difficult choice - he could either return home to Newcastle in north-east England without his wife and newborn son or join the Russian army.

"He was so desperate to stay with his family he would do anything," she says.

It is illegal for Britons to fight for foreign nations involved in conflicts with countries with which the UK is at peace, unless they hold dual nationality, according to the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.

But Nathan is not the only British national without dual nationality to fight for Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine.

Ben Stimson and Aiden Minnis are believed to be the first and were given Russian citizenship for fighting in the occupied Donbas region. Bradley Townsend was killed in Ukraine in June and is believed to be the first British citizen fighting for Russia to die in the conflict.

Their situation is different, Valerie says, as Nathan did not travel to Russia with the intention of fighting in the war.

"He never wanted to join the army," she says. "He was there to live with his family."

She understands people may have strong opinions about Nathan fighting for Russia and stresses she condemns the country's "awful" invasion in Ukraine.

"I really don't care about changing people's opinions," she says. "What I care about is trying to find him."

Nathan moved to Russia on Christmas Day 2024 to start a new life with Ksenia.

They had met online and she had visited him and his family in the UK.

The couple got married in Russia and were bringing up their son like a "normal, little family".

They were also raising Ksenia's three children from a previous relationship, which meant relocating the whole family to the UK was deemed unaffordable, Valerie says.

She questioned Nathan's initial decision to move to Russia but warmed to the idea because the couple lived "miles from any fighting".

They did talk about the conflict "but it was happening in Ukraine, it wasn't happening in Russia", she says.

"It had no effect on them at all."

Prior to Ksenia's text message, Valerie had no reason to believe something was not right. Receiving photos and videos of her newborn grandchild made everything feel "normal".

As the days and weeks passed since Nathan went missing, the enormity of the situation became increasingly clear.

The family discovered he had recorded a goodbye video at the start of his military service, which he sent to his wife to be passed on to his mother in the event of his death.

"I could only watch it once," Valerie says. "I had to turn it off."

Despite the video and his prolonged silence, she believes her son is still alive.

The fight for answers has been long and torturous for Valerie, who has approached the government and several charities, both in the UK and Russia.

"I contacted the Foreign Office and got a caseworker there, but they admitted themselves that they can't do anything," she says.

"Nobody tells you what to do."

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was aware of reports a British national was missing after fighting for Russia in Ukraine and was "in contact with his family".

It said it advised against all travel to Russia and "our ability to provide consular support in these circumstances is severely limited".

Questions to Russia about Nathan's last known whereabouts failed to provide any leads. "They just kept saying everything was classified," Valerie says. "They wouldn't even tell us where he was."

All of Valerie's spare time is spent trawling the internet for clues.

"The days just roll on, the weeks roll on," she says, wiping away tears. "We're nine months down the line with no more answers than we had in the beginning."

But she still has hope he may be captured, but alive. and watches official body exchanges between Russia and Ukraine on the news service Reuters. No reports have contained Nathan's name.

She remains hopeful he would at least be identified, because the Russian authorities have his DNA from his baby.

Valerie's investigations led her to a report in The Telegraph newspaper about a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp but the journalist who wrote it could not remember seeing Nathan during his visit.

Although she did not agree to be interviewed, that contact was to have consequences.

She told her employer at the Home Office, where she worked as an asylum decision maker, that Nathan had disappeared in Russia and she had sought help from the reporter.

She says she was immediately sent home from work and suspended, pending a disciplinary hearing, at which she was sacked for gross misconduct because contacting the media was in breach of her contract.

She explained she had spoken to the journalist "purely to find information" and did not disclose where she worked but lost an appeal against the decision.

The Home Office told the BBC it did not comment on individual employment cases.

With "nothing to lose", Valerie contacted the journalist to share her story of Nathan's disappearance and of losing her job.

She hoped the article would be seen by someone who had been in contact with her son, but it attracted little sympathy from people online who were critical of his decision to fight for Russia.

"I did read some of the comments when the article went out but I stopped because they were just awful," she says.

Now, she lives in "limbo every day", not willing to give up the search for her son, clinging to the hope he will be found alive, but having exhausted all avenues for help.

"Every single day I think my phone could go and somebody somewhere is going to say 'we've found him'," she says.

"I have read reports of Russians that have turned up after a year of being in captivity, or whatever, and their families thought they were dead.

"So every day there is a new hope he could be found."

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