British father killed by drone while fighting in Ukraine, wife says

A British father who volunteered to fight for Ukraine in the war against Russia has been killed by a drone strike, his wife has said.

Alan Robert Williams, 35, from Moreton in Wirral went to the country after losing his job despite having no military experience and his family’s pleas not to go, Stephanie Boyce-Williams said.

She said fellow fighters contacted her to say he had been killed in a Russian drone attack in the Kharkiv region by adding “it doesn’t feel real” and she was “in limbo” waiting for official confirmation of his death.

A Foreign Office spokesman said it was “supporting the family of a British man who is missing in Ukraine, and are in contact with the local authorities”.

Mr Williams left his wife and their 12-year-old daughter in the UK on 7 May to travel Ukraine.

The family said they lost contact with him on 2 July after he set off on a mission, and were later told on 14 July he was listed as missing action, and two weeks later a member of his unit confirmed he had died.

Ms Boyce-Williams told BBC Radio Merseyside: “I was sitting at home with my oldest son when I got the text through to say they had important information and could they call me so I knew instantly.”

She said she and others in the family had tried to convince her husband not to go to fight but he was determined.

“We were all absolutely devastated when he told us [he was going to fight],” she said.

“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,” she said.

She said she had been in touch with him every day but when she last spoke to him, she knew something was different.

“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.

She said he explained to her in his last text that: “I want to be straight with you this is dangerous”.

“Once it passed the three-day mark, which is what he originally said he was going to be out for, I was literally checking my phone every single day,” Ms Boyce-Williams said.

“I said to one of my friends I want my phone to ring and for it to be his ringtone, I do not want a Ukrainian phone number coming up on my phone.”