“During the abduction, a plastic bag was put on his head,” Gerashchenko told Interfax-Ukraine. “The enemy detained him in the city crisis center, where he was engaged in the life support of the Ukrainian city.”
Mayor #Melitopol Ivan Fedorov was kidnapped, said Anton Gerashchenko
According to him, Fedorov refused to cooperate with the Russian military, who occupied the city. He was placed in the city’s crisis center, where he was responsible for the life support of the city. pic.twitter.com/mCzfCzDWzQ
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 11, 2022
Russia accused Fedorov of “terrorist activities,” according to the Associated Press. Prosecutors in the Luhansk People’s Republic, a Moscow-backed rebel region in eastern Ukraine, said without evidence that Fedorov funded the Right Sector nationalist militia to “commit terrorist crimes against civilians in Donbass.”
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Zelensky confirmed that Russian troops had captured Fedorov and demanded that Russia “immediately release him from captivity.”
“The detention of the mayor of Melitopol is a crime against democracy,” he told a press conference in Kyiv on Saturday, adding that Russia should be ashamed of its actions.
The Ukrainian president has said Fedorov’s alleged kidnapping, which he called “mere terrorism,” is the latest in a series of attacks against mayors across the country who are not cooperating with Russian troops occupying their cities. Melitopol, with a population of about 150,000, has been under Russian control for two weeks now. Despite the Russian occupation of the city, Fedorov, an ethnic Russian, has incited recent demonstrations in Melitopol against Russia.
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“They are not ashamed of this video,” Zelenskiy said of the Russians who allegedly kidnapped Fedorov, claiming that the invading forces were “transitioning to a new stage of terror.”
Zelenskiy said he raised the issue of Fedorov’s fate in calls to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, urging the leaders to “contact” Russian President Vladimir Putin “to release the mayor.”
Zelenskiy said the alleged kidnapping of the mayor prompted about 2,000 people to protest on Saturday outside the mayor’s office, which was occupied by Russian troops. Wrapped up against the cold, protesters in Melitopol chanted the release of Fedorov.
Bring back the mayor! Bring back the mayor! they sang. “Freedom to the mayor! Freedom for the mayor!
In Melitopol, recalcitrant residents gathered at the occupied district administration, demanding from the Russians the release of the kidnapped mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov – video by the Governor of the Odessa region Maxim Marchenko pic.twitter.com/nCrE6OtQd0
— Miroslav Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) March 12, 2022
The demonstration took place against the backdrop of an intensifying Russian offensive against Ukraine. Russian troops advanced on Saturday to the eastern outskirts of Mariupol, a strategic port on Ukraine’s southern coast, and several cities across the country, from the capital Kyiv to Nikolaev, another key Black Sea city, continued to come under sizzling bombardment. Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of attacking a hospital in Nikolaev and a mosque in Mariupol.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian catastrophe is growing: according to the UN, almost 2.6 million Ukrainians have left the country since the beginning of the invasion. After local authorities in Poland, where 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have fled, warned they were struggling to cope with the arrivals, Germany said on Saturday that other countries should “step up” to help with the massive influx of Ukrainians. refugees.
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Zelenskiy said on Saturday that any peace talks with Russia and Putin could only start with a ceasefire agreement. Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he was open to talks with Putin and that he had discussed the possibility of holding talks in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as a mediator. But Zelensky stressed that real peace talks cannot begin until both sides agree to a ceasefire.
“Our diplomats are working and they have discussed some items on a possible agenda between us and the Russian Federation,” Zelensky told reporters. “I want this to materialize, and the process of ending the war, the peace process, 100 percent, must begin with a ceasefire.”
Russian troops have killed about 1,300 Ukrainian troops since the invasion began last month, Zelenskiy said. The President of Ukraine added that between 500 and 600 Russian servicemen surrendered on Friday. The Washington Post has not confirmed any of these figures.
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Melitopol, a city where Russian is commonly spoken, is about 145 miles northeast of the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. While the city was stormed at the beginning of the invasion and was quickly captured, Fedorov remained steadfast. , saying, “We are not collaborating with the Russians in any way.”
When residents of Melitopol took to the streets over the weekend to wave the blue and gold colors of Ukraine, Fedorov encouraged demonstrations even under Russian occupation.
“Together we will overcome everything!” he wrote in a Facebook post that has since gone private.
Now the Ukrainian authorities are trying to find out where he is being held. Ukrainian diplomat Oleksandr Shcherba wrote about this on Saturday. Twitter that Fedorov was still alive.
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“They torture him to make him [him] cooperate,” Shcherba said of the Russians.
Even as Russian forces sought to quell Saturday’s protest, Zelensky repeated to reporters that he was “thankful to every resident of Melitopol for this resistance,” demonstrating in response to Fedorov’s alleged kidnapping. He also suggested to Putin that the war was unpopular with Russians.
Do you hear, Moscow? he asked. “If 2,000 people are protesting against the occupation in Melitopol, how many people should be in Moscow against the war?”