The detention of the mayor of the southeastern Ukrainian city of Melitopol is a “crime against democracy,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday in a video posted on Facebook.
Earier Friday, Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov was seen on video being led away from a government building in the city by armed men. A short time later, the Russian-backed Luhansk regional prosecutor claimed Fedorov had committed terrorism offenses and was under investigation.
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.
CNN
