Editor’s word: This story has been edited to right the final title of Alex Drueke’s aunt.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alex Drueke and Andy Huynh are each navy veterans from Alabama, so it was pure that they shaped a bond as soon as they met in Ukraine, the place every traveled individually with the intention of serving to defend democracy in opposition to Russian invaders.
“They grew to become buds,” Dianna Shaw, Drueke’s aunt, mentioned in an interview Thursday.
Each males are actually lacking after their group got here underneath heavy hearth within the Kharkiv area of northeastern Ukraine close to the Russian border on June 9, leaving family members at house anxiously awaiting details about their whereabouts. The 2 households are in contact.
“The ready is the arduous half, however we at all times knew this was a risk,” Shaw mentioned.
The U.S. State Division mentioned it’s investigating experiences that Russian or Russian-backed separatist forces captured not less than two Americans. If true, they might be the primary People preventing for Ukraine identified to have been captured for the reason that battle started.
Shaw mentioned it’s doable the 2 may simply be mendacity low: She famous that the 39-year-old Drueke had intensive coaching and expertise throughout two excursions in Iraq, whereas Huynh, 27, served 4 years within the U.S. Marines.
“They know methods to evade,” she mentioned. “They is perhaps doing simply that.”
Russia hasn’t confirmed any details about the boys. The president of the separatist Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, mentioned Thursday that “as of now, I don’t have such data and I can’t remark,” in accordance with the Interfax information company. Pushilin spoke whereas attending the St. Petersburg Worldwide Financial Discussion board.
Huynh’s fiancee, Pleasure Black, mentioned she received a message from a soldier telling her that each males had missed their rendezvous level and had been in an space that was hit “fairly arduous.” Black, talking in an interview with WAAY-TV, mentioned she ran to her mom’s room and fell on the mattress sobbing.
“I’m making an attempt to remain robust for him to get this phrase out and to attempt to get him again house. I’m not going to lie and say that it has not been actually, actually arduous,” Black mentioned.
It’s unclear what number of People have traveled abroad to help Ukraine since preventing started in February however the quantity is believed to be within the lots of, if no more.
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Army veteran Harrison Jozefowicz, who give up his job as a Chicago police officer and traveled to Ukraine quickly after Russia invaded, is now serving to place volunteers in fight positions and coordinating provides as head of a gaggle known as Process Power Yankee. A number of hundred People serve within the Worldwide Legion of Protection of Ukraine, he mentioned, and nonetheless extra are aiding exterior the power.
“Within the volunteer world, the people who find themselves right here for the lengthy haul are digging in and getting severe — shopping for warehouses, establishing everlasting routes of logistics with devoted drivers,” he mentioned Thursday.
Shaw mentioned her nephew joined the Army at age 19 after the phobia assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, and he believed he may assist Ukrainian fighters due to his coaching and expertise with weapons. Drueke contemplated whether or not to go for a couple of weeks, she mentioned, after which made up his thoughts.
“He approached me and mentioned, ‘I’m going to go to Ukraine.’ I advised him, ‘For you, that is sensible,’” she mentioned. “He’s actually compelled to defend democracy wherever that meant going.”
Huynh moved to north Alabama two years in the past from his native California and lives about 120 miles (193 kilometers) from Drueke. Earlier than leaving for Europe, Huynh advised his native newspaper, The Decatur Each day, he couldn’t cease occupied with Russia’s invasion.
“I do know it wasn’t my downside, however there was that intestine feeling that I felt I needed to do one thing,” Huynh advised the paper. “Two weeks after the battle started, it saved consuming me up inside and it simply felt flawed. I used to be dropping sleep. … All I may take into consideration was the state of affairs in Ukraine.”
Drueke doesn’t have a spouse or kids, his aunt mentioned, and he favored the thought of touring to assist Ukraine so somebody with extra familial connections wouldn’t need to. He left in mid-April and entered Poland legally earlier than going to the border and being allowed into Ukraine, she mentioned.
Now, Drueke’s family members are in contact with the U.S. State Division, congressional workplaces or wherever else that may assist them discover out what’s happening.
And so they’re ready.
“It was how we lived whereas he was in Iraq, and it’s how we reside now,” Shaw mentioned.
Related Press News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York Metropolis contributed to this report.
