The Mayor of Melitopol was kidnapped on Friday by Russian soldiers occupying this southern Ukrainian city, the country’s parliament and its president, Volodimir Zelensky, said.
“A group of ten occupants has kidnapped the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov,” the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, said on its Twitter account. “He refused to cooperate with the enemy”he added.
According to this source, he was arrested when he was in the crisis center of the city, located about 120 kilometers south of Zaporizhia, to deal with supply issues.
“Today in Melitopol, the invaders have captured the city’s mayor Ivan Fedorov. A mayor who bravely defends Ukraine and members of his community,” Zelensky said later in a video.
“This is clearly a sign of the invaders’ weakness… They have entered a new stage of terror in which they are trying to physically eliminate representatives of legitimate local Ukrainian authorities,” he said.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Kirill Tymoshenko, previously posted on Telegram a video showing from a distance soldiers leaving a building holding a man dressed in black with his head apparently covered with a black bag.
According to the Rada, other officials in the region, the deputy head of the Zaporizhia regional council, Leyla Ibragimova, had been captured and then released days ago.
Before the start of the invasion on February 24, Melitopol had just over 150,000 inhabitants.