A British teenager killed by a Russian drone on the Ukrainian frontline swapped computer shoot-em-ups for real-life warfare and had never before held a gun other than for paint-balling, his devastated father has revealed.
James Wilton, 18, died fighting against Vladimir Putin’s invasion despite having no military experience.
The youngster, from West Yorkshire, flew to the war zone after signing up as a volunteer with the International Legion of Ukraine.
He was killed during his first mission after being targeted by three drones while scurrying supplies to troops across an open field.
James’ father today told Mail Online how he warned his son about the risks of joining the Ukrainian resistance – but said his mind was made up.
Speaking from the home he shared with James in Huddersfield, Graham Wilton said he ‘probably did not agree’ with his son’s decision to travel but that he ‘would have gone regardless’.
Mr Wilton, 52, said: ‘Did I agree with what he was doing? Not really.
‘We sat here and we had various conversations about it but it was an idea that he couldn’t get out of his head. He felt he had to go.’
‘He explained it to me, I told him what I thought, and it’s one of those, isn’t it? He would have gone regardless.
‘I think he was brave. I couldn’t do what he did. But he did it without hesitation, and that makes me proud beyond words.
‘Did I agree with his choice? No. But did I support him? Always.’
James Wilton, 18, died fighting against Vladimir Putin ‘s invasion despite having no military experience
James’ father Graham is seen in this picture at a memorial for his son
Graham Wilton is seen among his son James’ comrades
The funeral of James Wilton which took place in Ukraine
Mr Wilton went on: ‘He knew the risks, and he still went – because he believed in something greater than himself.
‘He had his whole life ahead of him, but he chose to stand up for what he believed in.’
James, who was just 17 when he flew to Ukraine, had harboured thoughts of joining the army after leaving school, but instead enrolled at college to study animal welfare and land care.
His father said he had never held a gun ‘other than paint-balling in the back garden, shooting a dustbin’ and playing shoot-em-ups on his computer.
Mr Wilton said he had a number of conversations warning his son about the dangers of travelling. His mother, Kerrie-Anne, 44, and sisters, Sarah, 21, and Sophie, 22, were ‘dead set against him going’.
He said: ‘I told him, ‘You know what could happen, James.’ He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, but I’ll be alright.’ That was him – fearless and always putting others before himself.
‘He was just a lad who played FIFA, Halo, and Call of Duty. We used to sit side by side, playing together. Then he stepped into a real battlefield – not for glory, but because he wanted to help.
‘He wasn’t chasing war. He was searching for purpose. The greatest tragedy is that he didn’t have more time.
‘James had always talked about the Army but then he decided against it and I suppose this was a way of trying to do something.
‘He just wanted to help. That’s what he was always like.
‘If you were walking down the street and you fell over, he’d have helped you up.’
James was killed while crossing an exposed battlefield to deliver supplies to comrades on July 23. But news of his death near the village of Terny on the eastern front was unreported until this week.
Mr Wilton, a counter assistant at a flooring company, said his son was weighed down with a 60-kilo pack when he ‘froze’ after hearing the buzzing of enemy drones overhead.
A bomb was detonated on him as he desperately tried to run for his life.
His friend, an American volunteer named Jason, attempted to save him but was unable to.
Mr Wilton told how he received a text message from one of his son’s comrades telling him that ‘something had happened’ before receiving the tragic news in a phone call from James’s battalion commander.
Soldiers from 68th brigade of Ukrainian army take a break to have a meal during military training in Donbas Region, Ukraine on January 29, 2025
Ukrainian soldiers of 43rd Brigade are seen working on a Soviet era Pion self propelled howitzer in the direction of Chasiv Yar, Ukraine on January 27, 2025
He said: ‘I suppose in the back of my mind I’d probably been sat here waiting for a call at some point.
‘The biggest regret is he didn’t have much of a chance to help. Apart from he brightened the lives of a lot of people for three months while he was out there.
‘Everyone I spoke to liked him and they still laugh and joke about what they did with him.’
Mr Wilton said he had spoken to his son the night before he died in a 30-minute Whatsapp call ‘talking as we would if we were in the living room in front of the telly’.
He said: ‘I didn’t know he was going on this mission.
‘I only heard after the fact that he wasn’t due to go on this mission but he volunteered after hearing his best friend was going.
‘Not a day goes by where I don’t think, ‘What if?’
‘But if I had said ‘James, you’re not going?’ then I would have woken one morning and he would have gone.
‘This way, I made sure he was as prepared as he could be to do what he wanted to do. He knew the risks and he had my blessing.
‘He kept in touch and told me exactly what he was doing. I paid for his flight, I paid for his bus from Lvil to Ternopil where he needed to be. I made sure he had a load of tobacco to take with him. He had money in his bank account and cash in his pocket.
‘I said to him ‘look James if you’ve had enough, tell me and I’ll get in the car and I’ll come and get you’.
‘If he had told me he’d had enough, I would’ve been in the car that night to bring him home.
‘But deep down, I know he wouldn’t have changed a thing. He stood for something.
‘And that makes me the proudest father in the world.’
James was cremated in Kyiv following his death on July 23 last year.
His devastated father drove 1,800 miles to Ukraine for the funeral, where he was presented with a box by the Ukrainian armed forces containing a certificate of service and two flags – of the UK and of Ukraine.
He laid 18 white roses on James’s coffin to represent his home county of Yorkshire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, January 30, 2025 in Moscow
Recruits of the ‘Alcatraz’ assault battalion composed of ex-prisoners prepare for medical and trench training in Donetsk Oblast on January 31, 2025
President Volodymyr Zelensky this week hailed James as a ‘heroic person’ who is forever ‘in our hearts’.
He told James’s parents: ‘Thank you for bringing up such a man.’
Mr Wilton accepted the Ukrainian leader’s thanks but warned that foreign fighters were being used as ‘cannon fodder’ in the relentless war.
He said he knew of two other Brit fighters – from Shrewsbury and Stockport – that had entered combat.
Mr Wilton said: ‘I’ve spoken out to raise awareness that the war’s still going on, and there’s people out there like James, and they’re being sent into the battlefield poorly equipped.
‘Basically they’re cannon fodder. They get a basic kit, and they get an AK-47, and that’s about all they get.
‘Sometimes they don’t even get proper medical kit to take with them because they’re in short supply.
‘The British Army are extremely well trained, but if you’re 18 and you’ve done two or three years in the armed forces, you don’t know what it’s like until you’ve actually done it.
‘James had a month’s military training at a base near Lviv and that’s about all he got.
‘It’s just a tragedy, isn’t it? It’s just hard to put into words, but James was set on doing something to help.
‘The only person I blame is Putin, because he should have never, ever, have gone into Ukraine.’
Mr Wilton said he plans to return his son’s ashes to Ukraine, with some laid among fellow fallen soldiers and civilians in Kyiv’s Independence Square.
In December, Ukraine said it had suffered 43,000 fatalities as a result of the war with another 370,000 soldiers wounded.
The death toll of Russian forces was estimated at about 200,000.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
