California father desperate to get 2-year-old son home from Ukraine
Amy TaxinThe Associated PressRussia was massing troops on the border with Ukraine when an increasingly desperate Cesar Quintana went to the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December to plead for a passport for his toddler son, who had been abducted from their Southern California home a year earlier by his Ukrainian-American mother.Quintana got a U.S. court order showing he had sole legal custody of 2-year-old Alexander. He was granted the passport, bought plane tickets and a few days later headed to the airport for a flight home.But they never boarded the plane. Police who he said were summoned by Alexander’s Ukrainian grandmother – the mother of Quintana’s estranged wife – ordered the boy be turned over to her.Now, three months later, Ukraine is ravaged by war