“They held my hands, put a bag on my head and took me away”

The sun is shining in Zaporozhye. Saturday and crews of municipal workers come out to plant flowers on the roadside. There are quite a lot of stalls in the markets, where all kinds of products are sold, from food and drink to electronic items. Several bars and cafes are even open.

But the front is just a half-hour drive from this industrial city, and much of the region, whose capital is Zaporozhye, is under Russian occupation. Beyond the tranquility that reigns, most people worry about what awaits them in the coming days and weeks. Here and in the south and east of Ukraine.

After failing to make rapid progress in Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew troops from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital in late March, leaving him in pain and outrage. It is expected that a major attack on the Donbass in eastern Ukraine will take up more space in the region and bring the gains that make it a victory.

The Ukrainian government has recommended the evacuation of residents near Donbass. In the neighboring town of Dnipro, the mayor told women, children and the elderly a few days ago to leave. But far from the battlefield, civilians could also face death while trying to escape, as demonstrated last Friday by a serious Russian rocket attack on a crowd of civilians in Kramatorsk.

“The battle for Donbass will not be just a battle for this territory, it will be a battle for world security,” said Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol, a city south of Zaporozhye that was occupied during the war. The first days of the war.

Russian soldiers abducted Fedorov and later released him during an exchange of prisoners. Now he works in the Zaporozhye office.

During the interview Guardian, His sentiment reflects the steadfast determination of Ukrainians to continue their fight against the Russian attack just days after news of war crimes committed in Bucha and other small towns near Kiev shocked the world.

“We should not talk about half-measures, all red lines have already been crossed, thousands of civilians have been killed,” Fedorov said. The interview is interrupted again and again by the calls that Mary receives on her two phones about the evacuation to occupied Melitopol.

Should Ukraine continue to negotiate a peace agreement? Fedorov answers angrily. “Bucha is erased, Jandaba is erased, do you think we will get half the size?

Fedorov’s widely circulated view offers a long and bloody battle for the Donbass: a more concentrated and resilient Russian offensive forces face a renewed Ukrainian army thirsting for revenge in this area, which has been in power for eight years, at war.

“Melitopol was not ready”

Government buildings in Zaporozhye are protected by sand parks. Police use sniper dogs to control passengers at the train station and sound anti-aircraft sirens several times a day. Evacuators from Mariupol and other Russian-occupied cities are waiting at the railway station before continuing their journey safely to western Ukraine.

On the main street is a huge poster aimed at hypothetical Russian occupants. “Russian soldier! Ukrainians protect families! And why are you going to die? Throw a gun. “Still alive.”

Russia may not have the resources to carry out large-scale attacks on cities such as Zaporozhye or Dnipro. But it is unlikely that Putin refused to bring at least the eastern half of Ukraine under Moscow control. “They are concentrated in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where we are seeing the most serious fighting at the moment,” he said. Guardian Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk. “What happens next will depend on how events unfold on the battlefield.”

Fedorov explains that Zaporozhye and Dnipro have the advantage of having time to prepare a strong defense. “Melitopol was not ready,” he says. In the first days of the war, the Russian army took control of Melitopol and other cities in southern Ukraine almost without a fight.

A few days after the Russians took control of Melitopol, a group of gunmen appeared in his office, who, according to Fedorov, were part of the Russian security services. They told him he could continue working until he agreed to Russian control of the city. “They said that Melitopol is Russia and that we can continue what we were doing, but we have to admit that now they were in charge of the security of the city.”

Melitopol is mainly a Russian-speaking city and many of its inhabitants have relatives in Russia. Fedorov, who also has relatives on the border, says the vast majority of the city is now strongly pro-Ukrainian and this has intensified since the Russian invasion.

Captivity

Like almost all of his teammates, Fedorov refused to cooperate with the Russians, explaining what made them increasingly angry. Especially when protesters with Ukrainian flags began to take to the streets. “These demonstrations were the straw that broke the camels’ backs on the Russians and the reason for my decision to arrest them. They came to the social assistance center during the day, which we arranged for the first day to distribute clothes and food, they held my hands, put a bag on my head and took me out. ”

The mayor appointed by the occupiers, Halina Danilchenko, filmed a video asking locals to greet the Russian government. “Now our main task is to adapt to the new reality, to start a new life,” he said.

Soldiers took Fedorov to one of the pre-trial detention centers in Melitopol, which is now under Russian control, and told him to sign four papers stating his team’s resignation and transfer of power. Fedorov says he signed them because he realized they had no legal force and assured him he could go. After that he was only released for a day and a half. Late in the afternoon of March 7, a new investigator appeared and began questioning at night, with a group of gunmen standing behind him, he recalls.

Fedorov says he was not physically assaulted at the detention center, but says it is clear that others did. “They were playing psychological games, [el interrogador] Was more or less polite, but I could hear screams from the side cell; “Obviously you could hear someone breaking their fingers.”

He assesses his conversation with the prison guards as surreal. “I asked them to explain what they were doing in my city, in my country. They told me: We came for the emancipation of the Russian language. I told them: “95% of the population in Melitopol speaks Russian, there is no such problem.”

The guards also told them they had arrived to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis and to prevent the beating of World War II veterans, he says. “34 veterans are alive in Melitopol. I know you all, we have a good relationship, we congratulate each other on May 9th [día en el que se celebra la victoria de la Unión Soviética sobre la Alemania nazi]”We met on October 23, the day of the liberation of Melitopol. This is our history,” Fedorov said. “Not only did we not strike them, but we are very grateful to them that we live in a calm sky, there is no doubt about that.”

After six days of captivity, Fedorov was handed over to an exchange of prisoners and has been in Zaporizhia ever since. After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he toured Europe with a message that the West should do more to support Ukraine. “If there is no peace in Ukraine, there will be war in Europe,” he told French President Emmanuel Macron when they met in Paris.

“Putin will not be satisfied through negotiations”

Within a week of Fedorov’s trip to Paris, reports of war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere complicated the possibility of resolving the conflict through negotiations, at least in the near future.

Although there were doubts about the readiness of both sides to reach an agreement on terms that were acceptable to the other, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations met on March 29 in Istanbul. Sources close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later told the media that they were close to reaching an agreement during the last round of talks.

But as more and more stories emerge about murder, rape and other war crimes, optimism seems increasingly out of place. “We have to take a professional, non-emotional and productive approach to this,” said Rustem Umerov, a Ukrainian lawmaker who is part of the Kiev negotiating team. But he also made it clear that in order to gain a place in the negotiations, Ukraine, in his view, had to continue to inflict defeat on the enemy on the battlefield. We understand that political power comes from a military situation.

However, Fedorov believes that it would be foolish for Ukraine to completely defeat Russia on the battlefield. Doing so will only buy time before Russia launches a new offensive, he says. “Attempting to predict the logical development of the situation is a mistake. We need to rethink the paradigm to include a sick person with imperial ambitions and a sick worldview,” he said. “Does anyone think they are going to reach a negotiated solution?” No never. “Only when I’m completely defeated.”

Translated by Francisco de Zarate.