The mayor of a Ukrainian city says the Russian soldiers who kidnapped him did not have knowledge of his city or even the country itself.
Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, said in an interview with BFM TV that Russian armed forces had interrogated him after he was kidnapped from his city March 11, according to NPR, and that the soldiers were completely unprepared.
“They said they wanted to liberate the town from the Nazis and where were they, and I told them in my 30 years in this town, I’ve never seen a single Nazi,” Fedorov told the TV channel, according to the outlet.
UKRAINE CLAIMS SECOND MAYOR HAS BEEN ABDUCTED BY RUSSIAN FORCES
Surveillance footage released by CNN shows Fedorov being dragged away behind a government building by the soldiers.
After Fedorov’s capture, he was placed in a prison cell with other people, who he says were tortured, with no way to contact his family, he said in the interview.
The soldiers informed him that they wanted to defend the Russian language and that they had heard rumors of World War II veterans being mistreated.
“I told them 95% of us speak Russian already and nobody’s stopping us, so there’s no problem,” Fedorov said in the interview, adding that he had reassured the soldiers that the veterans were treated as heroes.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Fedorov’s immediate release after his abduction — he was freed just days later, on March 16. Fedorov credits the surveillance footage and Zelensky’s efforts as playing a part in his release, he said in the interview.
According to the mayor, 29 Ukrainian elected officials are still being held by Russian soldiers.
