Russo-Ukrainian War: Zelensky: Several mayors in Russian prisons

According to Kiev, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are in Russian prisons. “At least six mayors and municipal leaders are currently in Russian captivity,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address to a human rights conference in Kiev. These are among thousands of others, some of whom have been incarcerated since 2014. 3,767 Ukrainians, mostly prisoners of war, have so far returned from Russian captivity.

Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets spoke at the same conference of “more than 16,000” civilians in Russian custody. “The number will be significantly larger if we liberate the Ukrainian territories,” Lubinets said. Only then will an on-site inspection be possible.

President remembers Matvyeev who stood up to tanks

In his speech, Zelensky recalled the fate of the mayor of the city of Dniprorudne in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, Yevheniy Matvyeev. “He was captured in March 2022 while trying to help the people of his community,” the president said. Matvyeev became known at the beginning of the war when he opposed a Russian tank column.

According to Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov, his body was recently handed over to Ukraine. “He was held captive by the occupiers for two years and eight months and was tortured,” wrote Fedorov on Telegram, who himself, as mayor of Melitopol, was arrested by the Russian occupiers at the beginning of the war and was later released.

Among the missing mayors is Ihor Kolychayev, the then mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which was occupied by Russia for several months. According to media reports, after his arrest he was last seen in a prison in Simferopol on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Ukraine has been resisting a Russian invasion for more than two and a half years. The Russian occupying troops in particular are repeatedly accused of human rights violations.