Mayor does not rule out evacuation of some of Kyiv’s population: "Toughest winter since World War II"

Vitalii Klychko, the Mayor of Kyiv, is not ruling out that some residents of the Ukrainian capital may have to be evacuated if the electricity supply situation gets even worse and temperatures plummet.

Source: Klychko, in an interview with German news agency Bild 

Details: Due to Russia's missile attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure facilities and the need to save electricity, the mayor said that "the worst winter since the Second World War" awaits the citizens, because the Ukrainian capital has not experienced such a "terrible winter" since then.

Municipal services are being forced to turn off the electricity in certain areas every few hours, otherwise the power system will be overloaded, and a total blackout may follow.

Quote: "Putin wants to force people to flee the capital by attacking the civilian infrastructure. But he achieves the opposite!...

We must also prepare for the worst case scenario. This could happen if there are widespread power outages and even colder temperatures. Then we will have to evacuate some of [the residents of] the city, but we don't want it to come to that!"

Details: A blackout is not just a lack of light: water and heating are also limited, lifts don't work, everything comes to a standstill.

The Mayor hopes for further support from Germany and Europe: "We are very grateful for the defence systems, but we need more, especially for other cities of Ukraine. In addition to weapons, we also desperately need generators, protective clothing and other humanitarian aid."

Klychko does not believe that Vladimir Putin is achieving his goals by blowing up Ukraine's infrastructure.

Quote: "He [the president of the Russian Federation – ed.] wants to intimidate people, make them freeze and do without electricity, so that people push Zelenskyy to surrender. But this will not happen. In my opinion, people will only get angrier and more determined. We will not die and we will not run away, like Putin wants...

We’re doing all we can, we work 24/7. We won’t just pack up and flee to the West, like Putin wants. He’s been wrong so many times in this war. He's wrong again."

Background: Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that when there was the first missile strike on Kyiv, he was offered to evacuate Kyiv – but he did not agree to this, in particular, because of the risk of a second Russian offensive on the capital in that case.

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