Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled a memorial to the Ukrainian city mayors, township and village heads whom invading Russian troops have kidnapped since Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of the country.
The three-piece memorial stands in the main lobby of City Hall and is open to the public Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Kyiv Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International announced the display of solidarity on April 15.
Kyiv has had a sister city relationship with Chicago, the U.S.’s third largest city, since 1991 when Ukraine regained independence amid the implosion of the Soviet Union.
“As Mayor of Chicago, I stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian mayors being held captive by Russian forces and send my deepest condolences to the family of Motyzhyn Mayor Olga Sukhenko, her husband, Ihor, and son, Oleksandr, who were all murdered in [Russian] captivity,” Lightfoot said.
Her statement was in reference to a township mayor who was found dead along with her family executed northwest of Kyiv last month with reports saying her son’s head was decapitated.
One stand at the memorial shows pictures of 12 local civic leaders whom Russian troops had kidnapped in the Donetsk, Zaporizhya, Mykolayiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions as of April 7.
A memorial devoted to abducted Ukrainian mayors by invading Russian forces in Ukraine stands in the lobby of Chicago’s city hall on April 15.
“The city of Chicago stands in solidarity with local leaders who have been targets of unwarranted and unjust Russian aggression” the memorial stand reads.
As recent as April 17, the Russian military abducted Ivan Malieiev, the head of the Zaporizhya regional village of Kyrylivka.
Citing the local military administration, state-run news agency Ukrinform reported that “Russian military vehicles encircled the village. Russian troops went from house to house…Ivan Malieiev refused to cooperate with Russian occupiers.”
Chicago Mayor Lightfoot said the “senseless, brutal, and unjustified war that Vladimir Putin has started with Ukraine must end.”
She continued: “Every day that it continues, more innocent lives are taken, more families are left traumatized, and more Ukrainians are forced to flee the country that they have rightfully called home their entire lives.”
Lightfoot added that “Putin must also be held accountable for the war crimes and other atrocities he and his forces have committed against Ukrainians.”
The unprovoked war is in its second month and is the biggest conflict on the European continent since World War II, causing the displacement of more than 11 million people and a humanitarian catastrophe with hundreds of thousands of people not having access to potable water, food and essential needs like electricity and gas.
