According to him, the government has not given a clear answer to local officials whether they can leave their city in the event of a potential occupation.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, said that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Russian occupation forces have kidnapped 30 mayors of Ukrainian cities.

Seven city leaders are still considered missing, he said in an interview with The Spiegel.

“The mayors were targets everywhere. The Russians tried to arrest the mayors and use various methods to force them to cooperate,” the head of the Ukrainian capital explained.

According to Klitschko, the government did not give a clear answer to local officials whether to leave their city in the event of a potential occupation or not. He added that Ukrainians had to make such a decision themselves.

“The situation was difficult: if you stay with your community, you are a traitor… We asked the government several times to give instructions: stay or evacuate? But we did not receive a clear answer,” Klitschko concluded.

Abduction of mayors

As reported at the beginning of the war, there are numerous cases of abduction of heads of Ukrainian towns and villages by the occupiers.

In March, the head of the Zaporizhia Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Starukh, announced the kidnapping of Dniprorudny Mayor Yevhen Matveev.

In June, Russian invaders kidnapped the mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kolyhayev. His adviser explained that Kolyhayev’s arrest was connected with his refusal to cooperate with the occupation authorities.

In addition, they detained the mayor of Hola Prystan Oleksandr Babich, the mayor of Skadovsk Oleksandr Yakovlev, and the secretary of the city council, Yuri Palyukha.

On March 11, in Melitopol, a group of 10 occupants kidnapped the mayor of the city, Ivan Fedorov. On March 16, it became known that Fedorov was freed from the captivity of the occupiers as a result of a special operation. He noted that the occupiers accused him of financing “Right Sector”.