The preemie twins born in Kyiv in the middle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were finally in their father's arms. Alex Spektor and his partner Irma Nuñez had a major problem in their hands. Their twin sons Moishe and Lenny, were born premature to a surrogate in the capital city of Kyiv in Ukraine. They had no way of reaching their preemie twins, however, as Russian forces launched their full-scale military attack in the country.
Desperate to get their young baby boys out of war-torn Ukraine, Spektor and Nuñez contacted a specialist evacuation team of U.S. Army veterans to help them transport the twins to neighboring Poland. After a meeting between the two parties, Operation Gemini was hatched with the mission to evacuate the American twins.
The mission was dangerous to say the least with Russian forces intensifying their attacks on civilians. Time was of the essence for Spektor as the Russian army was closing in on Kyiv. Spektor himself has roots in Ukraine as he was born in Kyiv when it was still part of the Soviet Union. He and his family later moved to the United States as refugees.
Preemie twins arrive during war time
It has come full circle for Spektor with his twin sons the ones being born in Kyiv this time around. Spektor and Nuñez, who live in Chicago, were increasingly getting worried about their surrogate Katya, as the tension between Ukraine and Russia grew as she approached her due date.
According to Spektor, the surrogate went into early labor on February 25. The journey to the hospital was difficult with Katya getting stuck in military traffic for three hours before reaching a facility that was equipped to handle the delivery.
The fighting probably contributed to Katya delivering Moishe and Lenny prematurely. That added to Spektor and Nuñez's concerns as preemie twins needed vital care to survive. The war in Ukraine made it difficult for them to be transported to a city away from the fighting. With their medically sensitive status as preemie babies as well, Spektor and Nuñez had no choice but to keep the twins in Kyiv in the middle of the war.
Time was of the essence, though, for Spektor as he knew Russian troops were going to storm the capital sooner rather than later. He flew to Poland and reached out to anyone who could help him get his twins out of the war zone.
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Bryan Stern's Project Dynamo rescues preemie twins
Spektor's prayers were answered when Army and Navy veteran Bryan Stern came to his rescue. Stern runs a nonprofit specialist extraction team called Project Dynamo, a unit that goes into war zones and rescues people who are trying to escape.
He has been rescuing people, many of them American citizens, from besieged Ukrainian cities ever since the war broke out. The team that picked up the preemie twins included two neonatal specialists, two doctors, a nurse and a Ukrainian ambulance crew.
The journey was perilous with the team taking 13 hours to reach the border crossing in Poland from the Kyiv hospital. Operation Gemini was a huge success with an emotional Spektor finally meeting his tiny twin boys.
