In keeping with his Gestapo playbook, Vladimir Putin’s forces are now kidnapping and torturing local officials in Ukraine. One abduction has been confirmed. There are doubtless others. The message is: Cooperate or else, resistance is futile. But somebody forgot to tell the Ukrainians. They are fighting back even harder than at the beginning of the invasion.

As the battle for Kyiv begins, the Russians will use more and more tactics of terror to try and intimidate the Ukrainian people and armed forces. Reprisals against civilians may be coming soon. But it won’t matter. Ukrainians can take it.

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FNC: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with Western nations Saturday to help him free a captured mayor from the southern town of Melitopol after he was taken by Russian forces. Zelenskyy’s plea for help came just hours after the Ukrainian parliament announced that Mayor Ivan Fedorov had been detained by roughly 10 Russian forces in the city’s center.”

Locals in Melitopol, a southern Ukrainian town captured by Russia, protest against the reported kidnapping of their mayor. Video via Zelensky’s office pic.twitter.com/139ld4KKly

— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 12, 2022

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“We address all the world leaders that talk to Moscow: France, Germany, Israel and others,” Zelenskyy said in an international address regarding the abduction Mayor Fedorov. “I personally called the Chancellor of Germany Sholtz and talked to him as well as to Macron…I’ll talk to whoever I need to talk to in order for our people to be freed,” he added, urging world powers to use their global prestige to “influence this situation.”

“Now we have information that he is being tortured. That is another level of evil. Putin is a terrorist, this is a terrorist state we’re talking about,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Inna Sovson. “There are no boundaries to him, there are no limits to his cruelty, and he needs to be stopped.”

President Zelenskyy further commented, “Our Armed Forces are doing everything to deprive the enemy of the wish to continue the war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said as fighting intensifies. “It’s the most powerful fighting against Russia in decades,” he added. “Ukrainians, I want you to understand me correctly – we are having extraordinary successes. The way all of Ukrainian people are resisting the invaders already has entered history.

“They are attempting to take us by quantity, quantity of combatants, quantity of equipment,” Zelenskyy said Saturday. “They are using terror to break us, to break our faith in our victory and Ukraine. I’m sure they will fail.”