in an interview with Sam Kileygives CNN a former US serviceman who fought with Ukrainian forces told of the battle he witnessed on June 9, in which American volunteer fighters Alexander John-Robert Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh were captured by Russian forces.
The man, who asked to be identified with the codename “Pip”, said his team had been sent on a mission east of Kharkiv, where a large-scale Russian armored attack was underway.
Drueke and Huynh fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at a BMP vehicle coming through the forest and destroyed it. But the team had to withdraw quickly, as more than 100 Russian infantrymen began to advance and American fighters found themselves in a village previously thought to be in Ukrainian hands.
When asked what happened to Drueke and Huynh, Pip said that “we suspect they were either knocked out by the T-72 tank or a grenade explosion. This is just speculation, we don’t know what really happened to them.”
A photo of the two men emerged on Thursday (16) with their hands tied behind and in the back of a Russian truck.
“I know Andy and Alex didn’t come here for money, they didn’t come here for glory. They came here with the firm conviction that Ukraine as a democracy needs help,” Pip told Kiley during the interview.
“As far as I know, we are paid almost the same amount, if not exactly the same as a Ukrainian soldier who is at the front… And money is certainly not my motivation for being here. And I know it’s not for Andy and Alex either,” he added.
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On Wednesday, the CNN reported that Drueke, 39, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Huynh, 27, of Hartselle, Alabama, had been missing for nearly a week and there were fears they might have been captured by Russian forces, according to their families and a fellow soldier. . The pair were fighting alongside Ukrainian forces north of Kharkiv.
CNN reported a day later that a third American the State Department identified as missing in action in Ukraine was US Navy veteran Grady Kurpasi. He served in the US Marine Corps for 20 years, retiring in November 2021.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he had been briefed on the three Americans who disappeared in Ukraine. In brief remarks to reporters as he left for a beach weekend in Delaware, Biden repeatedly said that Americans should not travel to Ukraine at this time.
“We don’t know where they are, but I want to reiterate: Americans shouldn’t go to Ukraine right now,” Biden said in response to a question from CNN’s MJ Lee at the White House.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the department is in contact with the families of the missing Americans, as well as Ukrainian officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The US State Department told the family of one of the Americans missing in Ukraine that there is potential evidence that Drueke was captured, but was unable to verify the photo at the time, Bunny Drueke, Alexander’s mother, told CNN.
On Friday, videos surfaced on pro-Russian channels and social media that appeared to show Drueke and Huynh detained at an unknown location. It is unclear who is holding them.
Ned Price said the U.S. was not in contact with Russia about the allegedly captured U.S. citizens because they still do not have “credible reasons” to believe that the Russians have captured them and also because Russia has not claimed to have taken them hostage.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN he knows nothing about the two American fighters.
CNN has repeatedly reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment on the case, but has yet to receive a response.
CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Jonny Hallam contributed this report to this post
Source: CNN Brasil
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