More than 20 American volunteer soldiers have gone missing in the war in Ukraine throughout the full-scale invasion, with the number of casualties having increased sharply over the past six months, and it is often difficult to repatriate the bodies.
That’s according to a CNN investigation, Ukrinform reports.
As the agency learned, the bodies of at least five Americans who died in battles over the past six months have remained on the battlefield. Only recently, two bodies were repatriated from the Russian-occupied territory to Ukraine following lengthy negotiations.
Families of the missing Americans told CNN that due to legal uncertainty, they often cannot officially declare their loved ones perished. The bodies of two American volunteers who were killed in action near Pokrovsk late September have not yet been found.
According to relatives, a 25-year-old former American soldier, Zachary Ford, and another American, known by his call sign “Gunther,” were killed by a drone during a mission to blow up a bridge near the village of Novohrodivka.
The surviving American, call sign “Redneck,” said that a group of three American volunteers were trapped by Russian soldiers in a trench about 500 meters from their target. According to him, Ford told his commanders by radio that they would abort the mission, but was ordered to pursue the effort. “Redneck” said his unit evacuated the area and that he later saw drone footage showing the bodies of Ford and “Gunther”. The area where they died is now under Russian control.
He said the chances of foreign volunteer fighters surviving the front line depended on their level of experience and the tasks their brigades were giving them.
Another former U.S. Marine, 41-year-old Corey Nawrocki, was killed in action in Russia’s Bryansk region in October. His body was displayed by Russian soldiers on Telegram, but after challenging negotiations, it was handed over along with nearly 800 other bodies that Russia returned to Ukraine last Friday. The volunteer’s mother said images of his body and weapons had been widely shared on Russian social media, and that her address and other information had also been posted there. After that, pro-Russian trolls started sending her “nasty comments and smiley faces” on social media.
Ukrainian officials said the task of identifying the dead is more complex when remains are returned from the Russian side. “After a body swap, we may be given a bag with 10 body remains belonging to different people,” said Artur Dobroserdov, Ukraine’s commissioner for missing persons under the Ministry of the Interior.
Dobroserdov confirmed that more than 20 Americans were missing in action, and said they could only release any part of the remains for repatriation once they had identified all of them, as they did not want families to bury part of a loved one only to be later given more remains.
Lauren Guillaume, an American living in Kyiv and working for the RT Weatherman Foundation, a nonprofit that helps foreign families find their loved ones, said foreigners can be declared dead through physical confirmation, such as a DNA test, or by court order if there is strong evidence of their death. But it is a lengthy process, she said. She is currently handling the cases of 88 dead or missing foreigners of 18 nationalities, half of whom are Americans.
She added that the true number of deaths among American volunteer soldiers in Ukraine remains unclear.
As Ukrinform reported, the bodies of 757 fallen defenders had been repatriated.
Source: Twenty American volunteer fighters gone missing in Ukraine since start of full-scale war - media
