Veteran-led team to host event and celebrity motorcycle ride led by Paul Teutul Sr., of Orange County Choppers, alongside rescued American hostage, Kirillo Alexandrov, and the Grey Bull Rescue team, plus public meet-and-greet and live entertainment at OCC Road House
TAMPA, FL / ACCESS Newswire / May 7, 2026 / Grey Bull Rescue, the veteran-led nonprofit that is world-renowned for its high-stakes rescue operations, is rallying the Tampa Bay community together to honor the 4th anniversary of the daring rescue of Kirillo Alexandrov, the first American victim of war crimes alive since World War II. Alexandrov was taken hostage and tortured by Russian Intelligence Services for 37 days until he was rescued. Now, Grey Bull and Tampa Bay will gather to give him something he has never formally received: a public welcome home. The event will bring together the rescue team, Alexandrov, and members of the community for a long-overdue public welcome home, highlighted by a motorcycle ride led by Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers. Teutul Sr. and the team at Orange County Choppers recently partnered with Grey Bull Rescue to build a 12-foot-long custom chopper motorcycle dubbed the ‘Speed of Need’, that was featured in the premiere episode of Orange County Choppers Original in February on the Discovery Channel.
On April 2, 2022, Alexandrov, a 27-year-old American from Detroit, was captured by Russian forces while attempting to flee the invasion of Ukraine with his family. He was falsely accused of 11 counts of espionage, publicly humiliated, interrogated, beaten, and subjected to repeated physical torture and mock executions. For 37 days, Alexandrov endured both physical and psychological abuse while in the custody of Russian forces, trapped inside a live war zone with no path to survival. With traditional options exhausted, including the FBI, his family turned to Bryan Stern, the Chairman and Founder of Grey Bull Rescue, to locate where he was being held and get him out alive from the clutches of the Russians.
What followed was one of the most daring and complicated rescues of an American in the modern era, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. The high-stakes mission relied on intelligence, tradecraft, speed, patience, deception, and precision to outmaneuver Russian Intelligence forces and extract Alexandrov undetected. To this very day, the Russians still don’t know how the operation was executed. The mission escalated when it provoked a failed assassination attempt by the Russians targeting Stern, Alexandrov, and his family, a scenario the team had anticipated, prepared for, and survived. With Alexandrov secured, Stern and the team did a 20-hour race through Russian-occupied Ukraine and the Ukrainian war zone, to Poland, all while being pursued by the Russians. Alexandrov’s mother flew from Michigan to Poland where she sat, waited, hoped, and prayed for weeks. After more than a month in captivity, Kirillo was reunited with his mother on the Polish – Ukrainian border.
In December 2023, the Attorney General of the United States along with the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, announced, for the first time in U.S. history indictments for war crimes against an American citizen by a foreign power.
“As the world has witnessed the horrors of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, so has the United States Department of Justice,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “That is why the Justice Department has filed the first ever charges under the U.S. war crimes statute against four Russia- affiliated military personnel for heinous crimes against an American citizen. The Justice Department will work for as long as it takes to pursue accountability and justice for Russia’s war of aggression.”
Today, four years later, Alexandrov is not only free but living in Florida and supporting the team that saved his life. Despite surviving an ordeal unimaginable, where his only crime was that he is an American citizen, he has never received any formal public recognition nor welcome home. Grey Bull Rescue intends to change that with this event, which will serve as both a long-overdue welcome home and an opportunity for the community to meet Alexandrov and the operators who carried out the mission.
“Kirillo survived something most people cannot comprehend, not just captivity, but systematic torture inside a war zone by a vicious enemy, with no way out other than death. He’s the first American victim of war crimes to survive since World War II,” said Bryan Stern, Chairman and Founder of Grey Bull Rescue. “When his family came to us, there were no options left on the table. So, we created one. We built a mission, we took on the risk, we went nose to nose with the Russian war machine, and we brought an American home.”
Stern added, “Four years later, this is about more than the operation. It’s about making sure that what he endured, and what it took to get him out, is seen, understood, and never forgotten. We don’t leave Americans behind, and we don’t let stories like this go untold.”
WHAT: Victory Day Ride
WHO: Grey Bull Rescue with rescued American hostage and prisoner of war Kirillo Alexandrov; motorcycle ride led by Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers, alongside Alexandrov, Bryan Stern, and the Grey Bull Rescue team
WHEN: Saturday, May 9, 2026 | 11 a.m.; Motorcycle ride departs at 12 p.m.
WHERE: OCC Road House, 10575 49th Street, N. Clearwater
DETAILS: Motorcycle ride, meet-and-greet with Alexandrov and rescue team, live entertainment including a Pink Floyd tribute band, food and drinks
Kirillo’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNIjLq8PTqM
Media who would like to attend are asked to RSVP in advance to PR@GreyBullRescue.org to secure a spot.
To learn more about Grey Bull Rescue and its work operating in conflict zones and disaster areas worldwide, visit GreyBullRescue.org.
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About Grey Bull Rescue:
Founded by Bryan Stern, Grey Bull Rescue is a veteran-led, 501(c)(3) nonprofit rescue organization headquartered in Tampa, Florida. The organization specializes in operating within “The Grey Space”-conflict zones and disaster areas where the U.S. Government may not be able to operate. Grey Bull Rescue has conducted daring rescues of Americans and allies from hostile regions including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, Haiti, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Jamaica, Venezuela and Mexico, including American hostages and victims of war crimes. The team also leads domestic response missions to natural disasters, such as the 2023 Maui wildfires, Los Angeles wildfires, and Hurricanes Ian, Idalia, Helene, Milton and Melissa. To date, the Grey Bull Rescue team has completed more than 800 rescue missions and saved the lives of over 8,700 men, women, children, and babies and even some pets
Media Contact:
Jennifer Vickery
Tel: 813.865.3093
Email: jvickery@nspublicrelations.com
pr@greybullrescue.org
SOURCE: Grey Bull Rescue
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
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