Kyiv's Mayor Says He's 'Ready to Fight' as Russians Continue Kidnappings

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has promised he is "ready to fight" following reports of multiple Ukrainian mayors being kidnapped by the invading Russian military.

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of capturing mayors in Dniprorudne and Melitopol in recent days, sparking concerns that additional mayors could be kidnapped next, including the mayor of the country's capital city.

Klitschko, who was a highly regarded world heavyweight boxing champion before entering politics, insisted during a Fox News interview on Monday that any Russian soldiers who hope to capture him would find that their task was "not easy."

"I am ready to fight," Klitschko said after America Reports host John Roberts asked him about a potential kidnapping attempt. "This will be not easy to do that ... nobody feels safety in our country right now in this very difficult situation. Everyone [is] ready to fight, ready to defend our city."

"I am not worried about kidnap," he added. "I am ready to fight, that's why I have weapons, that's why it's my hometown and I want to defend the interest of my citizens, the interest of my home, the interest of my family."

Ukrainian officials announced the kidnapping of Dniprorudne Mayor Matveev Sergeevich on Sunday, while they said that Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov was captured two days earlier. Russia went on to appoint a Moscow-friendly mayor in Melitopol.

While commenting on the kidnapping of Fedorov, which was partially captured on video, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asserted that "the actions of Russian invaders will be equated with the actions of ISIS terrorists."

Klitschko suggested that the kidnappings were part of a pattern of "un-human" Russian troops choosing to ignore the international rules of war, noting that mayors are civilian targets.

"War also has rules," said Klitschko. "But Russians [don't] want the rules ... what they want is the symbol ... they can't break the mood of the people and that's why they kidnap the mayors."

"Its actually against all rules," Klitschko continued. "We see how unfriendly, how un-human activity make Russians in our land."

Following Russian bombing campaigns on Monday, the Kyiv mayor surveyed scenes of damage in the city alongside his brother Wladimir Klitschko, who is also a former world heavyweight boxing champion.

"That's what Russia's war against the civilians looks like," Wladimir Klitschko said while standing in the rubble in a video uploaded to Twitter. "Destroyed buildings, destroyed infrastructure. [A] city bus just got hit by a rocket. Lives are getting lost, that's the war that Russia started."

According to the Ukrainian government, Monday's Russian strikes on Kyiv also included a missile hitting a nine-story residential building, leaving two dead and three others hospitalized.

Newsweek reached out to the Embassy of Russia in Washington, D.C., for comment.