Mayor of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, Vitali Klitschko has responded after he was criticized last week by Ukraine’s president, Volodimir Zelensky.
Klitschko was chided by Zelensky in one of his video addresses to Ukrainians last week, when he accused city authorities of failing to provide enough shelters despite the energy system being pounded by Russian attacks.
Officials have created special “heating points” to provide people with warmth and electricity in case Russian missile strikes on critical infrastructure cause sweeping blackouts.
But Klitschko, a famed former heavyweight boxing champion, seen as Zelensky’s major rival before Russia’s invasion, has now responded to the accusations by saying Kyiv had considerably more heating hubs than any other city in Ukraine.
“It looks strange when we are united against a single enemy, but we start to fight within the country,” he said.
“Our foreign partners say ‘you have a common enemy, but you cannot work things out among yourselves.'”
Klitschko, now in his ninth year as mayor, added;
“I am convinced that politics is behind this, because representatives of one political group began to run around trying to find faults (in Kyiv),” he said.