Two U.S. military veterans from Alabama who went to Ukraine to help beat back the Russian invasion are missing and feared to have been captured by Russian troops or Russian-backed separatists, their family members said.

The U.S. State Department is looking into reports that Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, of Trinity, Alabama, and Alexander Drueke, 39, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, haven’t been heard from for days after being in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, near the Russian border.

Huynh’s fiancé, Joy Black, said Huynh told her on June 8 that he would be unavailable for a few days. On Monday she was informed that Huynh and Drueke missed their rendezvous and they were in an area that was hit hard by Russian aerial assaults.

“He went over there to volunteer because he really cares,” Black told WAAY-TV in Alabama. “This had been really weighing as a heavy burden on his heart for quite a while before he left. He wanted to go and do what was right.”

White House spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. discourages Americans from fighting for Ukraine.

“It is a war zone. It is combat,” Kirby said. “If you feel passionate about  supporting Ukraine there is any number of other ways to do that that are safer and just as effective. Ukraine is not the place for Americans to be traveling.”

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Latest developments

►Japanese budget airline Zipair Tokyo is dropping the “Z” logo on its aircraft because it has become a pro-invasion symbol in Russia.

►French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Premier Mario Draghi have arrived in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to meet with  President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today as they prepare for a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels next week and a June 29-30 NATO summit in Madrid, Spain.