US veterans captured by Russian forces return to Alabama

US veterans captured by Russian forces return to Alabama
The US military veterans returned home to Alabama after a prisoner exchange with Russia-backed separatists
Two U.S. military veterans who were fighting alongside Ukrainian forces and disappeared have officially made it home to Alabama after a prisoner exchange with Russian-backed separatists.

Alex Drueke, 40, and Andy Huynh, 27, landed at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham on Saturday. The pair had gone missing June 9 in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border, and were released as part of a prisoner exchange.

"Surreal. I still have chill bumps," an aunt of Drueke, Dianna Shaw, said. "I always imagined this day. I always held not just hope but belief in this day. But I thought it was going to be two or three years from now at best.