TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Even after three months of captivity that included execution threats, bodily torture, solitary confinement and meals deprivation, it was the experience to freedom that just about broke Alex Drueke, a U.S. army veteran launched final week with 9 different prisoners who went to assist Ukraine combat off Russian invaders.
His fingers have been sure. His head was coated by a plastic bag, and the packing tape holding it in place was secured so tightly it it prompted welts on his brow. Drueke stated he and fellow American prisoner Andy Huynh reached their restrict on this state throughout the transit, which occurred in a collection of automobiles from jap Ukraine to an airport in Russia that was surrounded by armed guards.
“For all we went by way of and all of the occasions we thought we’d die, we accepted that we’d die, we have been able to die when it got here, that experience was the one time that every of us independently prayed for loss of life simply to get it over with,” Drueke informed The Related Press in an interview Friday.
“The psychological and emotional torture of these final 24 hours in captivity, that was the worst,” he stated.
Drueke, 40, is therapeutic: The swelling goes down on his head and he is attempting to regain a number of the 30 kilos (13.6 kilograms) he figures he misplaced consuming a poor weight loss plan. However terrible reminiscences stay, and he is uncertain what comes subsequent except for attempting to focus consideration on fellow prisoners who stay in Russian fingers.
“The battle has not ended,” he stated, talking on the residence he shares together with his mom and different kin in Tuscaloosa.
Drueke and Huynh, a 27-year-old fellow army veteran from Alabama, have been amongst lots of of People who went to Ukraine early on to assist in the combat in opposition to Russia.
On June 9, they have been captured throughout what Drueke described as a reconnaissance mission related to Ukraine’s worldwide legion, composed of overseas volunteers.
“Everybody else managed to make it again to the bottom protected,” he stated.
Russian troopers took the 2 males to their camp, after which into Russia for “intensive interrogation.” Whereas declining to enter specifics, Drueke stated the remedy was brutal.
“Each certainly one of our human rights have been violated,” he stated. “We have been tortured.”
The boys have been taken again to Ukraine to a “black web site” in Donetsk for practically a month of extra interrogation, he stated. They have been ultimately taken to an isolation cellblock inside a former Ukrainian jail. There, Drueke and Huynh have been compelled to document propaganda statements for a Russian video digital camera with troopers within the room.
“On the optimistic facet, there have been occasions they might put us in a closet, sure and blindfolded, … whereas they have been ready for no matter reporter to indicate up, and it gave Andy and I just some seconds to whisper issues backwards and forwards to test in on one another,” he stated. “It was the primary time we had talked in weeks at that time.”
Ultimately, after weeks of confinement that included a number of threats, it turned obvious that one thing — both a launch, a jail switch or execution — was within the works, stated Drueke, who joined the U.S. Army Reserve after the fear assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, and served two excursions in Iraq.
“We knew one thing was taking place as a result of our regular routine was being skewed and so they have been having us clear all of our private stuff out of the cell,” he stated.
However even then, the psychological torture continued, he stated. “One of many guards stated a few occasions, ‘I’m fairly certain you guys are getting executed,’” he stated.
As a substitute, they have been a part of a bunch of 10 males who have been launched Sept. 21 in a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia. The others who have been launched with them have been from Croatia, Morocco, Sweden and the UK.
Nobody relaxed till the airplane was within the air and an official from Saudi Arabia defined what was taking place, he stated. Touchdown in New York after a flight from Saudi Arabia, Drueke stated he and Huynh have been met by a Homeland Safety official from an workplace that investigates battle crimes.
Press aides with Homeland Safety did not instantly return an e-mail in search of remark, however the U.N. human rights investigators have stated Ukrainian prisoners of battle seem like dealing with “systematic” mistreatment by Russian captors that features torture.
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