20 US volunteer soldiers MIA in war in Ukraine, 5 killed in six months, CNN reports
Pravda Ukraine
At least five American volunteers have been killed on the front line in Ukraine over the past six months, reports CNN, and the corpses of two of them were brought back to Ukraine last Friday. More than 20 volunteers from the United States are still missing.
Source: CNN
Quote: “More than 20 Americans are missing in action on the front lines in Ukraine, with a spike in casualties over the past six months as foreigners fill urgent gaps in the country’s embattled defences, according to a CNN investigation.”
Details: CNN reports that the corpses of at least five American volunteers killed in action have not been retrieved from the battlefield in the past six months. Two of them were repatriated from Russian-occupied territory to territory controlled by Ukraine on Friday after lengthy negotiations.
The relatives of the missing Americans told CNN that they cannot bury their sons, cannot officially declare their loved ones killed, and that they are tormented by Russian internet trolls who harass them online. The intensity of the fighting along the entire front line in the east of Ukraine means that the corpses of soldiers on both sides often cannot be collected.
For example, two Americans were killed near Pokrovsk in the east of Ukraine in late September, claimed survivors and relatives. Neither of their bodies have been recovered.
A former US soldier from Missouri, Zachary Ford, 25, and another American with no military experience, whose family asked to call him only by the alias Gunther, were killed by a drone when it blew up a bridge near the village of Novohrodivka.
The surviving American, who goes by the alias Redneck, described one mission with a “limited chance of success”, during which the group of three American volunteers were trapped by Russian fire in a trench about 500 m from their bridge target.
Redneck reports that Ford told his commanders over the radio that they would abort the mission but was instructed to continue and that an evacuation was not possible for the next day.
Redneck reported that he fired his machine gun at the Russians in front of him and that the Ukrainians operating the grenade launcher and anti-tank Javelin weapon system were killed while holding back Russian armoured vehicles.
Redneck said that the likelihood that foreign volunteer soldiers would survive on the front line in Ukraine depended on their level of experience, as well as the tasks assigned by the brigades they joined. While some officers gave foreigners and Ukrainians equal tasks, he said, others “will sell you out and get you killed just as quick”.
The process of bringing the corpses back from the front line is difficult and emotional. Former US marine Corey Nawrocki, 41, from Pennsylvania, was killed in action in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast in October.
His body was shown by Russian soldiers on Telegram, and after difficult negotiations, Russia brought back nearly 800 corpses of dead soldiers to Ukraine last Friday, including Nawrocki’s body.
Lauren Guillaume from the Weatherman Foundation, which is searching for foreigners missing in the war in Ukraine, said that the organisation is currently dealing with 88 KIA or MIA cases concerning nationals from 18 countries. Most of them are missing in action, she said.
The number of American volunteer soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine is unknown.
Background:
- On 15 January, CNN reported, citing a statement by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, that the Russians may have killed Australian citizen Oscar Jenkins, who fought on the side of Ukraine and was captured. The Australian government promised to “take the strongest possible action” if this information is confirmed.
- On 29 January, Anthony Albanese said that the government had received a message from Russia that Australian citizen Oscar Jenkins, who fought for Ukraine and whose death after being captured by Russia was reported earlier, might be alive.
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