US Fighter Captured in Ukraine Speaks—Freely or Not

One of two US fighters captured in Ukraine says he's "doing fine" despite facing possible execution. Alexander Drueke, a US Army veteran from Alabama, spoke with his mother in a Friday phone call shared with the Washington Post by his family. It was their fifth call since Drueke and fellow Alabama resident Andy Tai Huynh were captured by Russian forces near Kharkiv on June 9. "I'm doing fine. No real danger currently," Drueke—held in the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine—told his mother, Lois. He said he had seen Huynh during a meeting with a lawyer on Thursday—Huynh has yet to speak with family or US officials, according to his fiancee—but otherwise remained in solitary confinement.

Drueke described the challenges of living in a confined space, such as "finding little things to think about, just, you know, [to] fill in the boredom," in the phone call that lasted over four minutes. His mother has described previous calls as scripted, noting her son was "clearly reciting some things he had been made to practice or read," per Tuscaloosa News. He also claimed he regretted his actions in a June 28 conversation with a blogger who'd previously spoken with Aiden Aslin, a British soldier sentenced to death in Donetsk. "I did not have a full understanding of what was going on" and would tell others to "look at sources outside of the West—be better informed," Drueke said, per AL.com, which noted he may not have been speaking freely.

In this call, Drueke said he'd been in contact with a State Department official who did not convey "any concrete news." His mother said a State Department case worker had told the family that "they were meeting with ambassadors and teams from Ukraine and also from the UK to discuss the British prisoners and all of y'all, and you and Andy were on the agenda." She added, "It just might be awhile." The State Department has only said publicly that it is in touch with family and "Ukrainian and Russian authorities" regarding the detainees. But Drueke's aunt, Dianna Shaw, tells the Post that officials are working to include Drueke and Huynh on a list of prisoners for potential action. A third American, Grady Kurpasi, last seen in Ukraine in April, is feared captured or killed, per the Post. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)