The mother of a US military veteran who went missing while fighting Russian forces in Ukraine has spoken with her son by phone and was told that his captors were “anxious” to begin negotiating his release, the family revealed.
Lois “Bunny” Drueke, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, answered a call from what appeared to be a Russian exchange and talked to her son Alex Tuesday for nearly 10 minutes in their first conversation since he and another US veteran were captured after a battle near Kharkiv earlier this month.
Apparently at the prompting of his captors, Drueke, 39, said the people holding him were anxious to begin release talks and that he had food, water and bedding, Bunny Drueke said in a statement released by her family.
“He sounded tired and stressed, and he was clearly reciting some things he had been made to practice or read, but it was wonderful to hear his voice and know he’s alive and all right,” she said.
Alex Drueke’s mom said she has learned from the US State Department that her 39-year-old son is being held in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Facebook/Alexander Drueke
Andy Nuynh, 27, was captured along with Drueke on June 9 near Kharkiv. Drueke said he had not seen Huynh in several days.
Drueke said he hadn’t been in contact with Andy Huynh, 27, another Alabama veteran who’d traveled to Ukraine, for several days, according to the woman.
Huyhn’s fiancée, Joy Black, said his family was thrilled Drueke was able to speak with his mother.
“We are still hoping to get a similar communication from Andy,” she said.
Before her direct conversation with her son, Bunny Drueke said Alex had left a message for her with the US State Department, in which he relayed to her that he was well, and that Huyhn “looked OK” when he had seen him a few days earlier.
“What they said was that he was being held by the Donetsk People’s Republic, and that they were willing to make a deal for release,” Drueke told CNN, referring to what she learned from her contact at the State Department.
The Donetsk People’s Republic is run by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s breakaway Donbas region, which has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the war.
Druke and Huynh failed to return to a meeting spot after their group came under heavy fire in a village in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border on June 9.
The two traveled separately to help Ukraine and bonded over their shared Alabama background, relatives have said.
Drueke told his mother he had food, water and bedding. via REUTERS TVKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested that international legal protections under the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Drueke and Huynh because they were “soldiers of fortune” and not members of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Huynh’s fiancée said she was hoping to hear from him, too. via REUTERS TVIn his comments last week, Peskov did not rule out the possibility that the foreign fighters could face the death penalty.
National Security Council coordinator John Kirby slammed the Kremlin rep’s death penalty threats as “appalling” and “alarming.”
During a recent interview with NBC News, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the two Americans “heroes” and pledged to fight for their safe return home.
With Post wires
