Klitschko says 600,000 people have fled Kyiv due to threat of humanitarian catastrophe - The Times

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on the extremely difficult situation in the capital, with the city on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe due to russia's constant attacks on energy infrastructure. He said this in an interview with The Times.

According to the mayor, the situation with basic services such as heating, water and electricity is critical. As of now, 5,600 apartment buildings remain without heat.

"The Russians want to create a humanitarian catastrophe in our hometown so that people will freeze in the winter," Klitschko emphasized.

In some districts, the situation is so bad that residents cannot use the bathrooms because the water in the pipes is freezing, and ice appears on the windows inside the apartments. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that this winter has been the coldest in a decade.

Kyiv suffers from regular attacks. The last large-scale attack took place on the night of January 20, when the enemy used more than 300 drones and dozens of missiles, including ballistic Iskanders and hypersonic Zircon missiles.

Klitschko also confirmed that ballistic missiles hit the same thermal power plant in Kyiv twice, and the new attacks effectively undid all previous efforts of repair crews to restore the grid after the January 9 attack.

Due to the inability to ensure normal living conditions, 600,000 people have left Kyiv over the past month. The mayor urged Kyiv residents to leave the city for safer regions or out of the city, where there are alternative sources of heating.

Amid the crisis, the public debate has also heated up: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously criticized the city authorities for insufficient energy preparations, to which Klitschko has responded publicly, emphasizing the scale of the destruction caused by russia.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on January 20, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the day before the massive russian strike, Ukraine received the necessary missiles, and this helped significantly.

On the night of January 20, a massive attack was launched on Kyiv and a number of regions of Ukraine. Due to the russian shelling, there are interruptions in electricity and water supply on the left bank of Kyiv.

Also, in the Rivne Region, a russian attack cut off power to more than 10,000 subscribers.