Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced on Sunday that 11 mayors and local government leaders from Ukraine remained in captivity after being kidnapped by Russian troops. Separately, the leader of a village west of kyiv was killed by Russian troops, she added.

Eleven mayors and heads of local administrations in Ukraine remain in captivity after being kidnapped by Russian troops, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced on Sunday. “As of today, eleven local community leaders from Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporozhye, Mykolaiv and Donetsk regions are in captivity,” she said in a video message posted on her Telegram account.

Village leader killed in captivity

“We inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN, all possible organizations as for the other missing civilians,” she added, asking “everyone to do everything possible. their power for their return”. She also announced that the head of the village of Motyzhin, west of kyiv, “was killed in captivity” by Russian troops. The kidnapping of Olga Sukhenko and her husband, also found dead on Saturday, was announced on March 26 by the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.

The announcements of kidnappings of several mayors of Ukrainian localities, in the territories occupied by the Russian army since the beginning of its invasion on February 24, have provoked condemnations from the European Union. One of them, the mayor of Melitopol (South), had been released in exchange for several Russian soldiers. In a report, the NGO Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that it had documented several cases of potential war crimes by Russian troops in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

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