A retired Marine went missing in Ukraine. His family says he’s severely injured in a Russian hospital.
The family of a retired U.S. Marine believe he is on life support in a separatist-controlled hospital in Ukraine after he went to fight back the Russian invasion alongside the Ukrainian military.
The family of a retired U.S. Marine believe he is on life support in a separatist-controlled hospital in Ukraine after he went to fight back the Russian invasion alongside the Ukrainian military. His wife and those helping her are now pleading with American officials for greater help in getting him home.
Grady Kurpasi, 50, traveled to Ukraine shortly after the war began in February to help with evacuations and train Ukrainian soldiers. He eventually joined up with the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and saw the atrocities committed in the communities outside Kyiv before going missing in the battlefields near Kherson, in Ukraine’s south, at the end of April.
Kurpasi’s wife, Heeson Kim, said in an emotional phone call with NBC News that she shared a dossier with the State Department in June, which has since grown to 63 pages, that allegedly includes information on his location and how he was tracked across Ukraine. It was gathered over months by a team of veterans who served with Kurpasi in the Marines and a group of nongovernmental organizations that took on his case.
Kim said she did not feel like the agency was “putting their effort and resources” into the information collected and the agency had not shared any intel about his case.
“I just want him home in whatever shape he is in,” she said. “I want him here alive. I want us to have a second chance. Please give us a second chance and bring him home.”
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