By Dan Peleschuk
KYIV, Nov 6 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko traded fresh accusations on Friday of failing to prepare the Ukrainian capital for new Russian strikes that have plunged the city into unprecedented power and water outages.
The city of more than 3 million is entering another winter of attacks on energy facilities that are sparking long periods of emergency power cuts, as Ukraine struggles amid a shortage of air-defence weapons to down fast-moving missiles and drones.
The rumble of generators has returned to torch-lit streets, with temperatures nearing freezing and residents still waiting for centralised heating to return. City-wide water outages last hours, and are more frequent than in previous years.
Kyiv’s bridges across the sweeping Dnipro River have also come under attack for the first time in Russia’s nearly five-year war, snarling traffic. Outages have also frequently halted metro services.
On Friday, Zelenskiy called the challenges “extremely serious” and suggested Klitschko’s administration was partly responsible.
“In fact, these are the consequences of the failure to implement decisions at the city level on preparations for the heating season, as well as of this Russian operation against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” he wrote on X.
Less than an hour later, Klitschko responded in a video address in which he suggested the government had “cynically” dragged its feet in approving a resilience plan for the city.
“With this kind of intensity of enemy attacks, without protecting key facilities with air-defence systems, the restoration, stable operation, and very existence of these facilities is under major question,” he said.
LONG-RUNNING FEUD
The barbs are the latest in a long-running feud between Zelenskiy, a former TV comedian elected in 2019, and Klitschko, an ex-champion boxer who has served as mayor since 2014.
Wartime elections are prohibited in Ukraine, meaning both men have remained in office beyond their terms.
Earlier in the war, which was triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion, Zelenskiy had criticised city officials for the state of Kyiv’s bomb shelters after three people were killed running to a locked shelter.
Klitschko has accused Zelenskiy of attempting to score political points by attacking him. Both men have rarely mentioned one another by name.
In an interview with Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne released on Thursday, Klitschko said his calls for a meeting with Zelenskiy to address Kyiv’s problems had gone unanswered.
His remarks came days after Zelenskiy said he had approached a number of top ex-officials to lead Kyiv’s military administration — a parallel wartime authority answerable to the president — but that none had agreed.
Speaking to reporters, Zelenskiy said it was “difficult” for Klitschko and presidential appointees to work together.
“Because as soon as we start talking to some managers about how to strengthen Kyiv, the mayor gets the impression that someone wants to replace him,” Suspilne quoted Zelenskiy as saying.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk)
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