"The conflict took place at around 7:50 p.m. on Ehitajate tänav in Kohtla-Järve where a 59-year-old man repeatedly hit a 25-year-old man. The latter was taken to the hospital by an ambulance and discharged later that evening. The 59-year-old man was detained and taken to jail," Ville Ränik, head of field operations for the Jõhvi Police Department, told ERR Sunday.

He added that the police have launched criminal proceedings to determine the motive and other circumstances of the incident.

Mayor Virve Linder (Isamaa), who made the incident public, took to social media to write that there has been an active campaign to incite hatred against her and her team on social media ever since she was elected, which culminated in the Saturday assault.

"Today, the situation culminated in Erik Setškov, who was worried for the safety of citizens and was out taking note of storm damages on his day off, and who has been a rock for me, being attacked by an enraged citizen. While taking pictures of a bus stop pavilion the storm had displaced, he was approached by an aggressive man who, upon hearing he was a member of the city government, called him an O******** henchman and assaulted the deputy mayor by pulling him down on the ground and repeatedly kicking him in the face," the mayor of Kohtla-Järve wrote.

"Good people, politics is NOT LIFE even though it might prove LIFE-THREATENING. Adults in their right mind should be able to understand that WORDS HAVE POWER and power ALWAYS COMES WITH RESPONSIBILITY," Linder said in her post.

The Kohtla-Järve City Council elected Linder to serve as mayor last November after 14 people with ties to city authorities were handed corruption suspicions in October and the council expressed loss of confidence in the then city government.

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