Alex Drueke, a military veteran and Tuscaloosa resident who went to help Ukraine fight Russian invaders, is healing after months of captivity. “Every one of our human rights were violated,” he said. “We were tortured.”
, a 27-year-old fellow military veteran from Alabama, were among hundreds of Americans who went to Ukraine early on to help in the fight against Russia.
“On the positive side, there were times they would put us in a closet, bound and blindfolded, ... while they were waiting for whatever reporter to show up, and it gave Andy and I just a few seconds to whisper things back and forth to check in on each other,” he said. “It was the first time we had talked in weeks at that point.”
“We knew something was happening because our normal routine was being skewed and they were having us clear all of our personal stuff out of the cell,” he said. Instead, they were part of a group of 10 men who were released Sept. 21 in a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia. The others who were released with them were from Croatia, Morocco, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
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