The mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov told the journalist of "Babel" that now the collaborators in the city are hiding and almost do not appear in public due to fear for their lives. Moreover, reprisals can await them both from the side of Ukrainian partisans and from the side of the occupiers themselves and their accomplices.
"The pool of Gauleiters and collaborators that are in our field of vision is approximately 10-15 people. We are watching them. So, out of these 15 people, more than 10 hid on Monday and Tuesday and did not go to work or to people," the mayor notes.
According to him, collaborators see the destruction of Russian military bases and the liquidation of Russian collaborators and are afraid of reprisals. And not only from the side of Ukrainian partisans.
Ivan Fedorov cites as an example the attempt on a collaborator Andrii Sihuta, the "head" of the administration of the Melitopol district.
"They [the Russian occupiers] staged the fact that someone had attempted to assassinate him. They themselves gave three different versions in three hours, and then four hours later they already found who did it. The story is completely implausible," says Fedorov.
According to him, local collaborators are particularly afraid of "their own". After all, there is a redistribution of financial flows between the occupiers in Melitopol. They decide, in particular, who will control the theft of grain in Melitopol and the Melitopol district and the importation of diesel fuel and gasoline from the occupied Crimea.
The massacre on the part of the Ukrainians also scares the accomplices of the occupiers. Ivan Fedorov said that one of the collaborators lives far from the city and comes to Melitopol only with security. But the mayor did not name the name, so as not to interfere with the work of the Ukrainian special services.
"I will not name names in order not to interfere with the work of the special services, but we have information that one person does not live in Melitopol, but lives on the coast of the Sea of Azov. It is 50-60 kilometers from Melitopol. And every day this person is brought in and out by representatives of the ruscist power structures," the mayor said.
Fedorov added that Ukrainian special services know that all other collaborators are in Melitopol, and their addresses are also well known.
"It is because of this that today they walk and look around the corners, even in their apartments," the mayor concluded.