Ukraine secures release of US military veteran in prisoner swap with Russia
Cartoon depicting Russian soldier with boots of dead Ukrainian child, on phone with his wife. (r/Ukraine)
Suedi Murekezi immigrated to the United States, from Rwanda, then subsequently spent eight years in the U.S. Air Force. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Murekezi continued his line of work involving the technology industry. He lived in Ukraine since 2018, was captured in Kherson and detained under false allegations. He described detention conditions that included getting beaten and shocked. He was released together with 64 Ukrainian POWs.
From the Stars and Stripes:
After his detention in the southern Kherson region, Murekezi was moved to separatist-held territory closer to the Russian border, where others from the West, including those who volunteered to fight in the war on Ukraine’s behalf, have been kept captive.
Murekezi was for a time held in the Donetsk People’s Republic with two other U.S. military veterans, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh, both of Alabama, who were freed in a prisoner exchange in September. In a lengthy interview with The Washington Post after they were freed, Drueke and Huynh described brutal conditions in which they were frequently beaten and ate little.
Speaking to ABC News in Ukraine on Wednesday, Murekezi described similar treatment while in captivity, saying he was held in a basement, shocked and struck. His captors, he told the network, accused him of working as an American intelligence operative.
Murekezi emigrated to the United States as a teenager and spent eight years in the Air Force, according to his brother. He later moved to Ukraine and was based in Kherson – the first major city to fall to Russian forces following the Feb. 24 invasion, and which was recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces.
A total of 1,456 prisoners have been released from Russian captivity or Russia-controlled territory since the conflict began, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, told The Post on Wednesday.
As the pace of prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine has accelerated in recent weeks, reports have emerged of the abuse detainees faced while in Russian captivity.
One prisoner of war told The Post he was beaten so badly that his ribs were broken and his kidneys were badly injured. Drueke and Huynh, who shared a cell with Murekezi for several weeks, detailed repeated interrogations, facing physical and psychological abuse, and having little access to clean water. After their release in September, they said they intended to raise broader awareness about his case.
Stars & Stripes and Axios have the rest of the story.
Category: Russia, Ukraine, Veterans in the news
CIA ?
I wouldn’t think so Sapper. Be kinda hard for him to blend in considering his dark tan. Unless, of course, he was actually keeping an eye on the Big Guy’s 10% and got swept up before he could get out.
Back in the early ’70s, we had multitudes of WWII Vets still on active duty that emphasized that we DID NOT want to become Russian POWs if the balloon went up.
Perhaps the missing Nigerian prince, looking for his 10%?
I don’t know.
My experience with African immigrants is limited to three dudes.
All 3 were hard working and eager to fight, willing to take risks to accomplish the mission. Perhaps too much risk. All three had to be corrected repeatedly about keeping their weapons on safe. I had to drop the hammer on one of them. It might be an African cultural thing, spread their B-movies, as all 3rd world countries have a sizable collection of locally made B-Movies that we will never see.
But, these guys shot at everything that moved, had no situational awareness, and more than once fired at targets they could not identify, leading to friendly fire incidents, and formal investigation from higher headquarters.
That’s were I lost my cool. If you become a danger to my boys because you cannot PID your target in a urbanized terrain, you become a threat to my unit. I don’t give a fuck about how high speed you think you are, and how willing to walk through the bullets you are.