- Russian-speaking kidnappers threatened to kill a Ukrainian man if they did not get ransom money, the man's mom alleged.
- Meduza interviewed the woman, who said the captors demanded more than $5,000 to keep her son alive.
A Ukrainian man was captured by Russian-speaking kidnappers who threatened to kill him if they did not get more than $5,000 in ransom money, the man's mother alleged.
Independent Russian news outlet Meduza published an interview with the man's mother, Olha Novikova, who said her son, Oleksii, was captured in Mariupol as Russian forces bombard the city.
Olha Novikova said that on Sunday afternoon, a strange man called her on Facebook messenger through her son's account, saying, "We give you 15 minutes to think: if you get us interested, we will let him live, if not, we will shoot him," Meduza reported.
"They demand a ransom, and if I don't give them money, they promise to kill him and send me a video of the execution," Olha Novikova, a filmmaker from Mariupol, told the news outlet.
The captors told Novikova they would execute her son if they did not receive 5,000 euros within a day, Meduza reported. Oleksii — a freshman at Mariupol State University — was reportedly included in a list of possible captives to trade between Ukraine and Russia.
"They called back 15 minutes later and I told them that I did not understand how I could get them interested: I am a refugee and I do not have any funds," Novikova said.
Novikova, who said she was not permitted to talk to her son, added, "They are now bargaining with me for the life of my son — and they do not give any guarantees," Meduza reported.
Novikova said she began collecting money on Facebook to pay for the ransom. But even if she does pay, Novikova said the kidnappers only promised to turn her son over to Russian forces where they said he could be "work for the good of the Soviet Union."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's advisor Mykhailo Podolyak on Monday shared the purported ransom video and compared Russian forces to ISIS terrorists.
Podolyak shared a 53-second video on Twitter on Monday showing the captive Ukrainian man being interrogated in a dark room amid Russia's two-month, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Russian soldiers "are increasingly similar to ISIS militants," said Podolyak, adding that Russia "must be recognized as a terrorist-state."
The presidential advisor claimed the video was sent by "Russian soldiers" to the mother of the Ukrainian man, though Novikova herself told Meduza she believes the kidnappers spoke without a Russian accent and suggested the gang could be people from the Donbas region in Ukraine.
In the video shared by Podolyak, a young man identifies himself by name and says he is a soldier of the 109th brigade of the Territorial Defense Force of the Donetsk region, according to a translation.
Novikova told Meduza that "most likely, he was forced to say that he served in the territorial defense."
In the video, the Ukrainian man from the besieged city of Mariupol revealed that he was captured on April 23 and claimed he was a volunteer fighter as he was questioned.
When asked how he has been treated, the man responded: "Okay, I have food here, water, a toilet," according to a translation of the video.
He also said that aside from being physically hit one other time, he was not beaten again and did not need medical attention, according to the video.
The man's fate is unclear.
Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.
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