Russians seen abducting Ukrainian mayor after he 'refused to cooperate' in chilling CCTV

dailystar.co.uk:

Russian troops abducting a Ukrainian mayor after he "refused to cooperate with the enemy" which officials have since branded a war crime.

The State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine uploaded the clip following the frightening kidnap on Friday (March 11).In the video, a person can be seen being escorted out of the city's crisis centre by a team of around ten Russian troops while his head is covered in a black bag.President Volodymyr Zelensky compared the soldiers to “ISIS terrorists” following the release of the footage, believed to show the abudction of the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov.“They have transitioned into a new stage of terror, in which they try to physically liquidate representatives of Ukraine’s lawful local authorities," he said in a video on Friday.It has been reported that the prosecutor’s office of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a Moscow-supported rebel region in eastern Ukraine, alleged there was a criminal case against the mayor and accused him of “terrorist activities.” However Ukraine's Foreign ministry refuted the claims and said the abduction was a war crime before urging Ukraine's allies to add pressure on Russia in response to the ongoing attacks and the kidnap, reports New York Post.

In a statement on Facebook, they said: “We urge the international community to immediately react to the abduction of Ivan Fedorov and other civilians in Ukraine, to strengthen pressure on Russia to force it to end the barbaric war against the Ukrainian people.“The facts of the kidnapping of the mayor of Melitopol, as well as hundreds of other facts of war crimes of Russian occupiers on Ukrainian land, are carefully documented by law enforcement agencies.