Russians try to subdue Ukrainian cities, towns by seizing mayors
KYIV, UKRAINE>> Not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, soldiers broke down the office door ofmelitopolmayor Ivan Fedorov. They put a bag over his head, bundled him into a car and drove himaround the southern city for hours, threatening to kill him.
Fedorov, 34, is one of more than 50 local leaders who have been held in Russian captivity since the war began Feb. 24 — an attempt to subdue cities and towns coming under Moscow’s control. Likemany others, he said he was pressured to collaborate with the invaders.
“The bullying and threats did not stop for a minute. They tried to force me to continue leading the city under the Russian flag, but I refused,” Fedorov told The Associated Press by phone last month in Kyiv. “They didn’t beat me, but day and night, wild screams fromthe next cell would tellme what was waiting forme.”
As Russians seized parts of eastern and southernukraine, civilian administrators and others, including nuclear power plant workers, say they have been abducted, threatened or beaten to force their cooperation — something that legal and human rights experts say may constitute a war crime.
Ukrainian and Western historians say the tactic is used when invading forces are unable to subjugate the population.
This year, as Russian forces sought to tighten their hold on Melitopol, hundreds of residents took to the streets to demand Fedorov’s release. After six days in detention and an intervention frompresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners of war and expelled from the occupied city. A pro-kremlin figure was installed.
“The Russians cannot govern the captured cities. They have neither the personnel nor the experience,” Fedorov said. They want to force public officials to work for them because they realize that someone has to “clean the streets and fix up the destroyed houses.”
The Association of Ukrainian Cities, a group of local leaders from across Ukraine, said that of the more than 50 abducted officials, including 34 mayors, at least 10 remain captive.
Russian officials haven’t commented on the allegations. Moscow-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine even launched a criminal investigation into Fedorov on charges of involvement in terrorist activities.
“Kidnapping the heads of villages, towns and cities, especially in wartime, endangers all residents of a community, because all critical management, provision of basic amenities and important decisions on which the fate of thousands of residents depends are entrusted to the community’s head,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, head of the association.
In the southern city of Kherson, one of the first seized by Russia and a key target of an unfolding counteroffensive, Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev tried to stand his ground. He said in April that he would refuse to cooperate with its new, Kremlin-backed overseer.
Kolykhaiev continued to supervise Kherson’s public utilities until his arrest June 28. His whereabouts remain unknown.
According to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 407 forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests of civilians were recorded in areas seized by Russia in the first six months of the war. Most were civil servants, local councilors, civil society activists and journalists.
Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher athuman Rightswatch, said the abuse “violates international law and may constitute a war crime,” adding that Russian forces’ actions appeared to be aimed at “obtaining information and instilling fear.”
Several mayors have been killed, shocking Ukrainian society.
The body of Olga Sukhenko, who led the village of Motyzhyn, near Kyiv, was found in a mass grave next to those of her husband and son after Russian forces retreated.
Residents said Sukhenko had refused to cooperate with the Russians. When her bodywas unearthed on the outskirts of Motyzhyn, her hands were found tied behind her back.
Mayor Yurii Prylypko of nearby Hostomel was gunned down in March while handing out food andmedicine. The prosecutor general’s office later said his body was found rigged with explosives..”
There has been no news about the fate of Ivan Samoydyuk, the deputy mayor of Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Samoydyuk, abducted in March, repeatedly has been considered for a prisoner swap, but his namewas struck off the list each time, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said.