“We know they’re talking, they’re breathing, they’re mobile, and they look a lot like themselves,” Darla Black, Huynh’s fiancée mother, told CNN Friday.
“I have your son standing next to me,” Bunny Drake remembers a woman from the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia telling her.
The families did not know that a prisoner exchange was being prepared.
“My brain couldn’t make out because there was no warning. It just came out of nowhere,” Drwick’s mother told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Joy Black, Huynh’s fiancée, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Huynh ordered beef spaghetti — a meal he’s been craving since he was in Ukraine — as soon as he returned to Alabama.
Even after their arrest, their families say the men said they did not regret going to fight with the Ukrainians.
“Alex told me emphatically no, no sorry,” his aunt, Diana Shaw, told CNN. “They really want people to understand that Ukraine needs our support. They need the support of all democratic countries. They need democracies to unite and push (Russian President Vladimir) Putin back.”
“The United States will never recognize Ukrainian territory as anything other than part of Ukraine,” Biden said. “The Russian referendums are sham — a false excuse to try to annex parts of Ukraine by force in flagrant violation of international law, including the UN Charter.” He said in a statement.
CNN’s Shawna Mizelle and Sam Fossum contributed to this report.
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