KYIV, March 12, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - The mayor of southern Ukraine's Melitopol
was kidnapped on Friday by Russian soldiers occupying the city, President
Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian officials said.

  "A group of 10 occupiers kidnapped the mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov,"
Ukraine's parliament said on Twitter.

  "He refused to cooperate with the enemy," it added.

  It said the mayor was seized when he was at the city's crisis centre
dealing with supply issues.

  In a video message late Friday, Zelensky confirmed the abduction, calling
Fedorov "a mayor who bravely defends Ukraine and the members of his
community".

  "This is obviously a sign of weakness of the invaders... They have moved to
a new stage of terror in which they are trying to physically eliminate
representatives of legitimate local Ukrainian authorities," he said.

  "The capture of the mayor of Melitopol is therefore a crime, not only
against a particular person, against a particular community, and not only
against Ukraine. It is a crime against democracy itself... The acts of the
Russian invaders will be regarded like those of Islamic State terrorists," he
said.

  The deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, Kirillo
Timoshenko, previously posted a video on Telegram showing soldiers coming out
of a building holding a man dressed in black, his head apparently covered
with a black bag.

  According to the Ukrainian parliament, another regional official, the
deputy head of the regional council of Zaporizhzhia -- 120 kilometres (75
miles) north of Melitopol -- was abducted and then released a few days ago.

  Before the Russian invasion, Melitopol had just over 150,000 inhabitants.