STOCKTON, Minn. – A former Winona man who had been teaching in Ukraine has disappeared in the Russian take-over of the Black Sea port of Kherson. His mother said the last she heard from Tyler Jacob was Saturday. They were texting as he was being taken by Russian authorities on a bus with other foreign nationals to Crimea. Suddenly the connection was lost, said Terry Hauser of the town of Stockton near Winona. She hasn’t heard anything since. Jacob, 28, had been living with his Ukrainian wife and daughter in Kherson when the Russian army invaded from occupied Crimea. There was fierce fighting in Kherson beginning at the first of march.
A mother’s account
Tina Hauser, of Stockton, said she had been worried from the start about her son’s move to Ukraine. Russian troops already were massing at the borders. “We knew when he went over there that there was a chance of the war,” Hauser recalled. “He was in Poland just before the war started, and I said I think you should stay, and he said, ‘No, Mom, I want to go back home, I have a job.’” There were U.S. State Department warnings to Americans to evacuate, but Ukrainians were accustomed to Russian threats and few were alarmed. In late February the Russians invaded from occupied Crimea 1390 miles away. Jacob, his wife and daughter left the city (Kherson’s population: 283,000) and moved in with family outside the city. “They were laying low,” his mother said. On Saturday he called that foreigners were being rounded up, apparently to be taken out of the country. His wife and daughter had been told to stay, he said. For 3-1/2 hours Jacob and his mother texted off and on. There was talk on the bus, he said, about being put in a flight to Turkey. The conversations ended after the bus passed into Crimea and the city of Armiansk (population 22,000). There has been no communication since from either Jacob or his wife.
Crowdfunding
Terry Hayunga, a friend of Jacobs’ mother, has organized an online fundraising campaign to rescue him, his wife and their daughter. “They need our help to get them safe and back home. He is stuck in a bad place in a bad country right now. They are running short on money for food and a way home. Neither of them can work due to the situation. Please help so we can get them home.” The GoFundMe goal is $10,000. Meanwhile, the mother has called on Senator Amy Klobuchar for help. Also contacted U.S. embassies in Russia and Poland.
Teachers. Tyler Jacob and his Ukrainian wife taught English — until the Russian army invaded and fierce urban warfare forced them to seek refuge outside the city.
Jacob. Last contact was March 12 at a Russian checkpoint in Crimea.
Jacob profile
Tyler Jacob graduated from Winona High School in 2012. He was living in Poland until November, when he and his wife, a Ukrainian national, moved with their daughter to Kherson in southern Ukraine. They had jobs teaching English.
Verbatim
Terry Haugen. his mother: “I’m very fearful because I just want to know he’s safe. I want to see proof that he’s alive, and that he’s healthy, I don’t want the mother’s worst fear to come true.”