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.
