Photo: Belarusian Defense Ministry/UPI photo/Newscom/Picture Alliance / Deutsche Welle
US media identified a third former US military officer missing in Ukraine on Thursday, after two other veterans were reported yesterday whose whereabouts are unknown.
CNN and The Washington Post contacted Heeson Kim, the wife of former US Marine Corps member Grady Kurpasi, who had traveled to Ukraine in late March to volunteer to fight the Russians.
Kurpasi has been missing since April 26, when he was assigned to an observation post to assist in the evacuation of civilians.
The Post already published yesterday that two other former US soldiers, who were fighting near Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, have been missing for a week and there are fears that Russian forces have captured them, according to their families.
The White House said it could not confirm whether the Americans had been kidnapped, but said if true, the administration would do “everything it can” to bring them back to the United States.
The other two missing are Alexander J. Drueke, 39, who formerly worked in the US Army, and Andy Tai Huynh, 27, who was in the Marine Corps.
communicated with their families
As the families explained to these media, both Drueke and Huynh called them by phone on June 8 to tell them that they could not contact them for some time, because they were going to undertake a mission for several days and, since then, they have not had contact again. .
Drueke’s mother, Lois, told The Washington Post that on Monday she received a call from another American who was in Ukraine with her son and who claimed to have intercepted information suggesting that both ex-military men had been captured by Russian soldiers.
Drueke had told his family that he was in Ukraine to teach that country’s forces how to use US-made weapons, while Huynh volunteered to fight with the Ukrainians, his fiancée, Joy Black, told the Post.
The United States has urged its citizens not to go to Ukraine, but hundreds are believed to have disobeyed the warnings and gone to fight Russia.
The exact number of Americans in Ukraine is not known; But when the war started in February, Ukrainian authorities said 4,000 had expressed an interest in going.
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