The Prosecutor General’s office said on Tuesday it was investigating abduction of Hola Prystan mayor Oleskandr Babich who was kidnapped by Russian troops on March 28.

It is reported the city official was threatened with guns and taken away to the undisclosed location.

Earlier this month, Russian occupying forces seized Boreslav mayor Oleksandr Shapoval along with a local Ukrainian activist whose whereabouts also remain unknown.

Abducted city officials in Kherson region are among at least 30 Ukrainian representatives who have been kidnapped by Russian forces since the start of Russian invasion.

Several mayors are now feared to have been murdered, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian troops are targeting Ukrainian civilians and officials in violent escalation in the east of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the president said, ‘They are kidnapping the mayors of our cities. They killed some of them. We cannot find some of them. We have already found some of them and they are dead’.