June 15 (Reuters) – Two Americans who traveled to Ukraine as volunteers against Russian forces have been missing for a week and fear they will be captured, family members said on Wednesday.
Alexander Drucke, 39, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Andy Huyn, 27, of Hartsel, Alabama, were in last contact with their families on June 8 and did not return from a mission around the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine.
Reports that the two men were taken prisoner of war from Russia have not been confirmed, said the families and a spokesman for the US State Department.
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“What we officially know at the moment from the State Department is that Andy and Alex are missing,” Joy Black, Andy’s fiancée, said by phone.
“We have no confirmation of anything beyond that. Obviously, the longer the search lasts, the more we start considering other scenarios,” she added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If the couple is captured, they will be the first confirmed US citizens taken prisoner of war in the conflict that began on February 24 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered an invasion of a neighbor.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that if the reports were correct, the United States would “do everything possible” to return them. Read more
Last week, two British nationals and a Moroccan man were sentenced to death by a separatist court in the unrecognized Russian-speaking Donetsk People’s Republic after being caught fighting for Ukraine. Read more
Lois Drucke, Alexander’s mother, said she had contacted the US embassy in Ukraine in Poland, which was looking for the couple.
Both men told their families on June 8 that they would go offline for a few days, but did not provide details for fear of having their communications intercepted.
Drucke served two tours in Iraq, most recently as Baghdad’s top scorer in 2008-09, his mother said. Huynh is a former U.S. Marine who left the service in 2018, his fiancée said.
They said the men did not know each other before their meeting in Ukraine, but both felt compelled to support the government after seeing photos of civilian casualties as Russia withdrew from cities outside Kyiv in late March.
“When Andy saw these footage coming out of Ukraine, he said he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, he was just overwhelmed by the horror these innocent civilians were going through,” Black said.
Russia denies attacking civilians and accuses Western citizens of acting as “mercenaries”, saying Western support for Kyiv is prolonging the conflict and leading to more casualties.
“As a mother, of course, I didn’t want my child to be in danger,” said Lois Drucke. “But I knew it was really important to Alex, he wanted a purpose in life and he felt it was good and noble.”
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Report by Jake Cordell in LONDON; edited by David Ljunggren and Grant McCool
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