Mayor of Melitopol Kidnapped By Russian Soldiers, Ukrainian Officials Say

LVIV, Ukraine — The mayor of Melitopol is the sort of particular person Russian troopers may need believed would have welcomed them with open arms and flowers.

Ivan Fyodorov, as his title suggests, is an ethnic Russian in a southern Ukrainian metropolis the place Russian is usually spoken and the place ties to Russia run deep.

On Friday night, Mr. Fyodorov had a bag thrown over his head and was dragged from a authorities workplace constructing by armed Russian troopers, in response to Ukrainian officers. Video filmed in Melitopol’s Victory Sq. seems to point out somebody being escorted out of a authorities constructing by troopers. The Instances can not confirm the id of the individuals within the video.

Since Russian forces captured his metropolis within the first days of the warfare, he had inspired resistance, incomes him the assist of the general public and the ire of the occupying military.

On Saturday, tons of of his townspeople poured out into the streets in an expression of concern and defiance, regardless of the presence of troops on their streets.

“Return the mayor!” they shouted, witnesses mentioned and movies confirmed. “Free the mayor!”

However almost as quickly as individuals gathered, the Russians moved to close them down, arresting a girl who they mentioned had organized the demonstration, in response to two witnesses and the lady’s Fb account.

The episode is a part of what Ukrainian officers say is a sample of intimidation and repression that’s rising extra brutal. It additionally illustrates an issue that Russia is more likely to face even when it manages to pummel cities and cities into submission: In not less than a number of the few cities and cities that Russia has managed to grab — largely within the south and east — they’re going through well-liked unrest and revolt.

For anybody who believed the Kremlin propaganda that Russia was on a mission to save lots of Ukraine from drug addled neo-Nazis, Melitopol was the sort of metropolis, run by the sort of mayor, that ought to have seen the Russian troops as liberators.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine mentioned that the kidnapping of the mayor demonstrated the falsehood underlying the Russian invasion.

“For years they’ve been mendacity to themselves that folks in Ukraine had been supposedly ready for Russia to return,” he mentioned. “They didn’t discover collaborators who would hand over the town and the facility to the invaders.”

And he sought to faucet into public rage in two videotaped speeches launched on Saturday.

“The entire nation noticed that Melitopol didn’t give up to the invaders,” he mentioned. “Simply as Kherson, Berdyansk and different cities the place Russian troops managed to enter didn’t — briefly managed to enter. And this won’t be modified by placing strain on mayors or kidnapping mayors.”

After individuals took to the streets, he praised their braveness and urged the warfare lacked well-liked assist amongst Russians.

“Do you hear it, Moscow?” he requested. “If 2,000 persons are protesting in opposition to the occupation in Melitopol, how many individuals ought to be in Moscow in opposition to the warfare?”

Mr. Zelelnsky mentioned he had raised the destiny of the mayor in calls with the leaders of Germany and France.

“We count on them, the world leaders, to point out how they will affect the scenario,” he mentioned. “How they will do a easy factor — free one particular person, an individual who represents the complete Melitopol neighborhood, Ukrainians who don’t surrender.”

Melitopol lies solely a brief distance from Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The town got here underneath fierce assault on the primary day of the warfare, Feb. 24, and Russian troopers entered solely days later. Whereas the town fell, Mr. Fyodorov remained defiant.

“We’re not cooperating with the Russians in any approach,” he mentioned.

As resistance has grown extra brazen, the Russian ways have grown extra brutal, in response to the Ukrainian authorities and witnesses. The Normal Employees of the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned on Friday that Russian troopers had been committing robberies, taking hostages and executing civilians. The reviews of executions and hostage taking couldn’t be independently verified, however there have been a number of witness accounts, typically recorded on video, of Russian troopers looting shops and houses.

Mr. Zelensky mentioned the kidnapping of the mayor was a part of a broader shift in ways. “They’ve switched to a brand new stage of terror, when they’re attempting to bodily get rid of representatives of the official native Ukrainian authorities,” he mentioned.

Final weekend, individuals waving the blue and gold of the Ukrainian flag took to the streets of Melitopol and different occupied cities.

For probably the most half, Russian troopers stood apart, at the same time as protesters commandeered a Russian armored car in a single city and drove it by way of the streets.

Mr. Fyodorov inspired the demonstration. In his most up-to-date publish on Fb, he thanked enterprise leaders who had been serving to the neighborhood within the second of strife. “Collectively we’ll overcome something!” he wrote.

His location is now unknown.

Muyi Xiao and Dmitriy Khavin contributed reporting.