The father of a Minnesota man says Russian authorities detained his son after he tried to flee the invasion of Ukraine that started late last month and may use him as propaganda.
John Quinn told CBS that his son, Tyler Jacob, 28, from Winona, Minnesota, was in Ukraine as Russian forces began advancing. Jacob, who last year moved to Ukraine to become an English teacher in the city of Kherson, met and married a woman from there.
"He met a girl over there, fell in love, got married, and now we are in a mess," Quinn said.
As the invasion was underwqy, Quinn said, the family started getting "calls in the middle of the night saying bombs are falling, planes are fighting in the air. Just stuff you never thought you would want to hear about."
He adds that Jacob boarded an evacuation bus for foreigners headed to Turkey on Saturday. But Russian soldiers stopped the bus at a Crimean checkpoint, at which point Jacob, the only American aboard, was detained.
"It's heartbreaking that your child would have to go through something like that," Quinn said.
"They eventually made a video with him as the subject about how well they were treating the prisoners over there. It's heart-wrenching," Quinn continued.
In response to the matter, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said, her "heart goes out to Tyler's family and we will do everything to locate him. My office is working with the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Moscow to find him and resolve this situation as quickly as possible."
"He's an American," Jacob's father added, "just like any other sports player or anyone important like that, so he is just as important to me as that player is to their mom and dad, so he deserves to be here too."
Quinn said Jacob's wife, who was not let on the bus, is still trying to flee Ukraine.
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