Invading Russian forces have arrested Ukrainian city Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov and accused him of terrorism.
Fedorov was seen on video Friday being led away from a government building in the city by armed men.
According to Ukraine’s parliament, known as the Verkhovna Rada, the Russian forces put a plastic bag on Fedorov’s head when they abducted him.
“He refused to cooperate with the enemy,” it wrote on Twitter. “The Ukrainian flag stood in the mayor’s office.”
The parliament said the mayor was seized when he was at the city’s crisis centre dealing with supply issues.
A short time later, the Russian-backed Luhansk regional prosecutor claimed Fedorov had committed terrorism offences and was under investigation.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the detention of the mayor was a “crime against democracy.”
Fedorov’s detention was “a sign of the weakness of the invaders,” Zelensky said.
“They did not find any support on our land, although they counted on it. Because for years they’ve been lying to themselves that people in Ukraine were supposedly waiting for Russia to come.
“This is Ukraine here. It is Europe here. It is a democratic world here.”
Zelensky added that the mayor’s detention was “not only against a particular person, not only against a particular community and not only against Ukraine.”
“This is a crime against democracy,” he said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the detention of Fedorov a “war crime,” saying the Geneva Convention prohibits civilian hostages from being taken.
