Kremlin says it does not know location of captured US 'mercenaries'

MOSCOW • The Kremlin yesterday said it did not know the location of two Americans taken while fighting in eastern Ukraine, but that they were mercenaries and could be sentenced to death in Russian-backed breakaway territories.

Americans Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, went missing this month while fighting near Kharkiv.

Russian state media later showed video interviews with the pair, saying they had been captured by Russian-backed forces.

Citing an unidentified source, the Interfax news agency reported that the men were in the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine.

Britons Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin and Moroccan citizen Brahim Saadoun were sentenced to death by a DPR court this month after being captured fighting with the Ukrainian army.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow could not rule out that the two captured men would also be sentenced to death if put on trial in a separatist territory.

Meanwhile, a US citizen was killed in combat in Ukraine last month.

Mr Stephen Zabielski, 52, was killed in fighting on May 15, according to an obituary in an upstate New York newspaper earlier this month. Media reports of his death circulated on Monday.

He had joined thousands of foreign fighters who have volunteered to fight on Ukraine's side.

A State Department spokesman confirmed Mr Zabielski's death in Ukraine. The spokesman's statement repeated earlier warnings that US citizens should not travel to Ukraine because of the conflict and the potential for being singled out.

REUTERS