Forces ordered to intensify attacks…

A U.S. Air Force veteran living in Ukraine has been detained by pro-Russian separatists, his brother said, becoming at least the third American to be captured in Ukraine since the war began.Russian soldiers took custody of Suedi Murekezi, 35, in the southern city of Kherson in early June and falsely accused him of participating in pro-Ukrainian protests, Sele Murekezi said Saturday. He said his brother called him last week and said he was being held in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist region in eastern Ukraine, with two other captured Americans, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh.A spokesman for the State Department said the agency was aware of “unconfirmed reports” that Suedi Murekezi had been captured, but he declined to comment further, citing “privacy considerations.”A Rwanda native, Suedi Murekezi moved to the United States as a teenager and served in the Air Force for eight years, his brother said. Suedi Murekezi relocated to Ukraine in 2018 for its dynamic technology sector and later settled in Kherson, the administrative center of a region with the same name.Sele Murekezi, who lives in Minnesota, said he had urged his brother to leave Ukraine before Russia invaded, but Suedi Murekezi resisted on principle and refused to abandon his close friends there.On July 7, Sele Murekezi received a phone call from an unknown number. The caller passed the phone to Suedi Murekezi, who said he wa …