₦airaland Forum

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 defenses, according to a CNN investigation.

The bodies of at least five American military volunteers who signed up to the Ukrainian military could not be retrieved from the battlefield after being killed in action in the past six months, CNN found. Two of these were repatriated from Russian-occupied territory on Friday to Ukrainian soil after lengthy negotiations.

The stark testimony of their surviving colleagues, and the growing toll, portrays the obscure yet important role of American frontline fighters in a war President Donald Trump has called “ridiculous” and has pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to end diplomatically.

The relatives of the missing Americans have told CNN of the distressing lack of closure in not being able to bury their sons, of the legal limbo of not being able to officially declare their loved ones dead, and also of the torment inflicted by Russian internet trolls who harass them online. The intensity of fighting across Ukraine’s front eastern lines means the corpses of soldiers from both sides often cannot be collected and litter the battlefield.

Two American soldiers were killed in a single incident just outside Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine in late September, according to survivors and relatives. Neither’s body has been recovered. Former US soldier Zachary Ford, 25, from Missouri, and another American without military experience, whose family requested to be identified only by his callsign ‘Gunther,’ were killed by a drone while tasked with blowing up a bridge near the village of Novohrodivka.

The surviving American, who asked to be known by his callsign ‘Redneck,’ described a mission with a limited chance of success, where the group of three US volunteers were swiftly trapped by Russian fire in a trench about 500 meters from their bridge target.

“Russian drones start coming down the treeline, to try to crash through the roof of the bunker,” he recalled in an interview with CNN last week from the United States. A log in the roof fell and hit him in the face, he said. “I had the shotgun, I was trying to shoot these things down.”

Ford told his commanders on the radio they would abort the mission but was instructed to continue and that no evacuation was possible for another day, Redneck said. As the assault began, Redneck said he fired his machine gun at Russians directly in front of him, and that Ukrainians manning a grenade launcher and anti-tank Javelin weapon system died while holding back Russian armor.

He said he stepped into a bunker to get ammunition, narrowly missing the drone strike that wounded Ford and Gunther. Ford’s injuries required two tourniquets to stem the bleeding, Redneck said, which he applied before rejoining the defense and seeing a Ukrainian soldier fatally shot in the face in front of him.

Minutes later, he heard Ford yell, “Gunther is dead,” he told CNN. “I came down to check, and the Ukrainian that was in there, and just looked at me and said, ‘friend dead.’” Redneck said Ford remained stable, and their commander warned on the radio that another Russian attack was imminent.

The process of retrieving the dead from the front lines is arduous and emotional. Former US Marine Corey Nawrocki, 41, from Pennsylvania, died fighting in Russia’s Bryansk region in October.

His body was paraded by Russian soldiers on Telegram, but after complex negotiations was one of nearly 800 dead returned to Ukraine by Russia on Friday, as was that of another missing American.

His mother, Sandy Nawrocki, wept as she described feeling a “whirlwind of emotions – relief, but sadness. A weight is lifted off my shoulder because now I don’t have to worry about what they might be doing to him over there.”

She described Nawrocki, a marine veteran of two decades with six tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, as a “smartass” who loved to make her laugh and was driven to fight in Ukraine because of the toll he had seen on civilians.

dettolgel:
You said volunteers but your your title says American military. Those are two different things.

WriterNig:
Both the same.

All are ex military.

HIGHESTPOPORI:
You and your false news,there is no USA soldiers in the writeup.People like you are cheering Russia online but begging for Usaids and visa offline

WriterNig:
Are you retarded?

Do you think ordinary civilians are admitted into high intensity battle in Ukraine?

There's no time for training, so if you're non military, you can't make the cut.

HIGHESTPOPORI:
No evidence,no mention of USA soldiers in the writeup,stop your fake news

WriterNig:
Dummy!

Maybe you're blind you can't see the pictures uploaded.

Get lost clown.

HIGHESTPOPORI:
Russia apologist, stop looking for us visa,and aids

HIGHESTPOPORI:
No evidence,no mention of USA soldiers in the writeup,stop your fake news

History555:
The news report was by cnn. So face cnn and leave op alone

sreamsense:
You have started your propaganda again, right? Is nairaland paying you or is just your passion to defend falsehood? Continue, your has will soon be sent to Egypt and Jordan to recreate their history

WriterNig:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/europe/american-fighters-ukraine-bodies-repatriation-intl-cmd/index.html

Here's my "propaganda" source. 🤡 🤡

Get lost Clown!!

WriterNig:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/europe/american-fighters-ukraine-bodies-repatriation-intl-cmd/index.html

Here's my "propaganda" source.

Get lost Clown!! [/b]

sreamsense:
Is it today we started seeing your sources only to be countered in less than a week? Since you always hunt for selective news that makes you feel and other Islamic sympathizers working for CNN happy; it doesn't always last before it gets debunked

WriterNig:
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/vasquez1.jpg
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/James-Vasquez-36.jpg



credit: CNN || Kyiv Post

Xisnin:
US soldiers mean serving US military personnel. Not volunteers or private mercenary.

The CNN source clearly called them volunteers but you lied that they are US soldiers.
There is something strange though,
Do you think US soldiers are superhuman and shouldn't
have died or why would you create such a fake propaganda headline?

HIGHESTPOPORI:
You and your false news,there is no USA soldiers in the writeup.People like you are cheering Russia online but begging for Usaids and visa offline

WriterNig:
Bow your head in shame and admit defeat.

What you said is none of my business. Let CNN counter CNN, I don't care. They're the fake news media you've been blabbing about.

Now get lost.

"The relatives of the missing Americans have told CNN of the distressing lack of closure in not being able to bury their sons, of the legal limbo of not being able to officially declare their loved ones dead, and also of the torment inflicted by Russian internet trolls who harass them online."