YAROSLAVL, July 3 (RIA Novosti) - Police have detained Yevgeny Urlashov, the mayor of the central Russian city of Yaroslavl, a police spokesman said Wednesday, adding that the circumstances of his arrest were being cleared up.
Urlashov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in 2008-2011, who later became a candidate from the opposition, achieved a landslide victory in the city’s April 2012 mayoral elections over a United Russia candidate. A member of billionaire and politician Mikhail Prokhorov’s Civic Platform party, he planned to head the party’s list at the September 8, 2013 elections to the regional parliament.
Urlashov’s spokeswoman Svetlana Yefimova told the Gazeta.ru news portal that officers from the Interior Ministry’s economic security department stopped the mayor’s car early on Wednesday.
“These were masked people in camouflage and plain clothes,” Yefimova said, adding that she was inside the mayor’s car at the moment. “Without explanations, they pushed him into their car and took him away.”
According to regional media, Urlashov on Tuesday held a working meeting with a PACE delegation to discuss the political situation in the region and the city.
