The Ukrainian mayor was kidnapped by Russian soldiers in the country’s south on Sunday, two days after another city official was kidnapped.
On Sunday, the governor of the Zaporozhye region, Alexander Starouh, reported on Telegram about the second kidnapping of the aedile in two days. “Today, March 13, at 8:30 am, the army of the Russian Federation captured the mayor of the city of Dneprorudnoye.” On Friday, the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, was already arrested by the Russians who have occupied the city, located halfway between Mariupol and Kherson, about 80 kilometers south of Dniprorudny. That’s because he “refused to cooperate with the enemy,” according to the Ukrainian president and parliament.
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“The EU strongly condemns the kidnapping of the mayors of Melitopol and Dniprorudny by the Russian armed forces. This is a new attack on democratic institutions in Ukraine and an attempt to create illegitimate alternative state structures in a sovereign country,” EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Twitter.
European Council President Charles Michel also condemned “in the strongest possible terms Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Ukraine, as well as Russia’s kidnapping of the mayors of Melitopol and Dniprorudny and other Ukrainians.”
“These kidnappings and other pressure on Ukrainian local authorities are yet another egregious violation of international law,” added the President of the European Council, representing the Twenty-Seven. “The military-political aggression of Russia against Ukraine must be stopped.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday asked French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to help free the mayor of Melitopol.
SEE ALSO – War in Ukraine: Zelensky asks for help from Macron and Scholz to free the mayor of Melitopol