Two Americans fighting alongside Ukrainian forces north of Kharkiv in Ukraine have been missing for nearly a week and their families and a fellow combatant fear they have been captured by Russian forces.
The men are Alexander John-Robert Drueke, 39, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, of Hartselle, Alabama.
A man who wanted to remain unnamed for security reasons, who is acting as the team’s sergeant, provided DailyExpertNews with photos of both men’s passports and their entry stamps into Ukraine.
The man said their unit fought near the city of Izbytske on June 9 under the command of Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade.
He said Drueke and Huynh were missing during the battle and subsequent searches failed to find any remains. A message the next day on a Russian propaganda channel on Telegram claimed that two Americans had been captured near Kharkov.
“It was absolute chaos,” he told DailyExpertNews. “There was about a hundred plus infantry advancing on our positions. We had a T72 shoot at people from 30, 40 meters away.”
Bunny Drueke, Alex’s mother, told DailyExpertNews that “they are believed to be prisoners of war, but that has not been confirmed.” She said the US embassy in Ukraine has not been able to verify whether her son was imprisoned.
“They have not been able to verify that he is with the Russians. All they can verify is that he is currently missing,” she said. “They are in close contact with me and I am confident that they are working on the situation.”
Joy Black, Huynh’s 21-year-old fiancée, told DailyExpertNews: “We don’t want to make any assumptions about what might have happened at this point. Obviously they are looking at different scenarios. And one of them is that they may have been captured. But we don’t have absolute confirmation of that at the moment.”
What the US says: A State Department spokesman said on Wednesday that they are “aware of unconfirmed reports of two US citizens detained in Ukraine”.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with the Ukrainian authorities,” the spokesman said. “Due to privacy concerns, we have no further comment.”
Jennifer Hansler of DailyExpertNews contributed to this post.
