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- Ukrainian forces freed Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov from Russian captivity.
- A senior Ukrainian official said Fedorov was safe and would return to work soon.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously criticized Russian forces for kidnapping the mayor.
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Ukrainian forces have freed Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov from Russian captivity, a senior Ukrainian government official said on Wednesday.
“Good news from Zaporozhye, a special operation to free Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov has just been successfully completed,” Deputy Head of the Office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Kyrylo Tymoshenko said in a video message.
Tymoshenko said that Fedorov is now safe. He added that the Ukrainian government “will never abandon its people.”
“Very soon, Ivan will return to his duties as mayor of Ukrainian Melitopol again,” Tymoshenko added.
According to The New York Times, the 33-year-old mayor called Russian troops “occupiers” when they took over his city.
CCTV footage shows someone being taken out of the Melitopol government building, reports The Times. A Russian news agency later reported that Fedorov was being taken to a breakaway district that Moscow had taken control of.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously demanded the release of Fedorov. He called the mayor’s capture an attempt to “bring the city to its knees.”
“The capture of the mayor of Melitopol is a crime not only against a specific person, against a specific community, and not only against Ukraine,” Zelensky said at the time. “This is a crime against democracy itself. The actions of the Russian occupiers will be equated with the actions of the terrorists of the Islamic State.”
Translations by Nikita Angarsky.