A Ukrainian mayor described hours of “hard” interrogations when held for almost a week by Russian forces last month and said he had appealed to the pope for help to stop a war that had wrecked swathes of his city in southern Ukraine.
“It was a dangerous six days because I understood that for Russians my life and the lives of civilians were worth zero,” Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol which is now under Russian control, said in Rome on Sunday, a month after his release.
Ukraine said Fedorov was abducted on March 11 after Russian forces seized Melitopol, which lies west of the besieged city of Mariupol in a southern region that Russia seeks to control. Kyiv announced Fedorov’s release in a prisoner exchange on March 16.
Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation”, has made no comment about the mayor’s detention or the prisoner swap reported by Ukraine.
Fedorov, who met Pope Francis and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Saturday before attending an Easter eve service, said he had asked the Vatican to intercede with Russian President Vladimir Putin to guarantee humanitarian corridors for Mariupol, which has faced devastating bombardment.
Major Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade which is still fighting in Mariupol, also appealed to the pope for help in a letter posted on Telegram on Monday.
“I don’t have much time to describe all the horrors that I see here every day. Women with children and babies live in bunkers … Every day the wounded die because there are no medications. No water, no food,” he wrote. “Help save them.”
Describing his detention by Russian forces in Melitopol’s police department, Fedorov said in an interview: “They came to me at night with five or seven soldiers and spoke for about four or five hours, hard dialogue.”
