Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on Sunday that 11 local community leaders in Ukraine had been abducted by Russian forces. “To date, 11 heads of local communities in the regions of Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Mykolaiv and Donetsk are in captivity,” she said in a video message posted on her Telegram account.
“We are notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations, all possible organizations, just as other civilians have disappeared.” Vereshchuk urged “everyone to do everything in their power to get them back.”
The deputy prime minister announced that Olga Sukhenko, the head of the village of Motygin, west of Kyiv, and her husband had been “killed in captivity” by Russian soldiers. His kidnapping was announced by prosecutors on 26 March.
The European Union has condemned the kidnapping of several mayors in Russian-occupied territory, including the mayor of the southern city of Melitopol, who was freed in exchange for several captured Russians. Human Rights Watch said on Sunday it had documented several cases of Russian soldiers committing possible war crimes against civilians in the occupied territories of Chernigov, Kharkiv and Kyiv.
These included a case of repeated rape and two cases of brief executions – one of six men, the other of another. The rights group said soldiers were also implicated in looting, including food, clothing and firewood.
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