Residents of Kyiv and the president are criticising Mayor Klitschko for a lack of preparation.

Kyiv. On 15 October, the first mobile shelter was installed on Beresteiskyj Avenue, where people can take refuge from Russian bombardments, which now occur at any time of the day or night. The structure was funded by a number of benefactors approached by the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko. Residents of the capital, home to around 3.7 million people, have greeted the news with scepticism. “The first mobile shelter in the fifth year of the war – I’m lost for words,” writes Ivan, a Kyiv resident, on Facebook. The closer winter draws, the more criticism the mayor faces. The former legendary boxer has been at the helm of the city since 2014 and has won three local elections. Volunteer Kateryna Terechova says her main criticism of the mayor is his failure to prepare the capital for the challenges of the war. According to her, over the past two years the volunteer community has helped to clear up the aftermath of the shelling at 350 damaged buildings and structures in Kyiv. Volunteers and charitable foundations are forced to purchase building materials, even supplying them to municipal service staff, and to organise assistance for the victims. “The capital of Ukraine cannot continue to rely on volunteers where the city’s administrative system should be functioning,” says Terechova. All the more so given that Kyiv does have the money: the city’s budget stands at around 100 billion hryvnias a year (2 billion euros).

On 17 October, around a thousand people gathered outside the town hall on Khreshchatyk Street, calling for Klitschko’s resignation. Among the other allegations against him are corruption scandals within his team linked to the construction industry. In February 2025, for example, as part of Operation ‘Clean City’, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau uncovered a criminal organisation within the Kyiv City Council that was controlling the process for allocating land rights in the capital. There are currently nine defendants and three convicted individuals in this case.

Even the president has expressed dissatisfaction with Klitschko’s performance. Volodymyr Zelenskyy states that the capital’s level of preparedness for winter is the lowest of all the country’s regions. “The people of Kyiv certainly feel this, when even after isolated Shahed strikes there are power and water cuts in a significant part of the capital,” the president wrote on 13 October, promising to take operational decisions shortly. But he cannot dismiss the mayor: he was elected by the citizens. Klitschko interprets these statements as pressure from the central government on the local self-government. The only thing Zelensky can do is appoint a new head of the Kyiv City Military Administration (a temporary state executive body in the capital, established by presidential decree on 24 February 2022 following the imposition of martial law) and strengthen this alternative chain of command for the city’s administration.

Tension between the president and Klitschko has existed ever since Zelensky came to power in 2019. “The post of mayor of Kyiv is very important; it is sometimes seen as a springboard for a presidential bid,” explains political scientist Jaroslav Božko. But on this front, Zelensky can rest easy: Klitschko’s ‘presidential rating’ is minimal. According to a poll by the sociological group Rating conducted last July, it stands at just 0.3 per cent. Nevertheless, the mayor’s position in Kyiv is secure and he still has no strong rivals to challenge him.

Speaking in Parliament on 14 October, Klitschko pointed out that Kyiv is under constant Russian bombardment. There have already been around 50 drone and missile attacks on the city’s energy infrastructure this year. And even last winter, despite the bombardments and power cuts, Kyiv held out. “We keep hearing that nothing is going right in Kyiv. But the question is: where is the capital’s air defence, where is the protection for Ukrenerho’s facilities, where are the billions that were allocated for this purpose?”, asked the mayor from the parliamentary rostrum, criticising the central government.

Despite everything, Božko predicts that the renewed escalation of the conflict between the mayor and the president will be temporary. But Terechova will continue to demand a public account from the mayor: “War cannot be used as an excuse for administrative inaction”.