Klitschko calls for preparations to repel the attack on Kyiv
Kyiv authorities are preparing for a second offensive by Russian forces on the Ukrainian capital.
The Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, stated this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, in an interview with the Voice of America resource funded by the US State Department.
“Kyiv was and remains the target of the aggressor. Kyiv is the heart. Kyiv is the capital. And that’s why we are doing everything to provide for different scenarios, even the worst scenario, so that if someone can and wants to, he can - this is a big question, wants to attack Kiev again, in order to hit him in the teeth, so you can say it in this language,” Klitschko said.
He argues that Kyiv is much better prepared for defense today than at the beginning of the Russian operation.
“Kyiv is now much better protected than a month ago, than six months ago, and even more so than a year ago. Now there is a control system, a system of checkpoints, modern weapons, and our armed forces are already much stronger than a year ago. We are prepared, armed, and a more detailed program for protecting Kyiv from aggression has been developed,” notes the capital’s mayor.
Recalling the events of February–March last year, he admits:
“Let’s be honest, we were even preparing for street battles.”
He was asked whether he considered it a mistake to refuse the mass evacuation of Kiev residents before the outbreak of hostilities. He shifted responsibility to the central government.
“Organize evacuation before the start of the war? Firstly, we received information from the government leadership that there would be no war. And to start contrary to the key statements that there will be no war, evacuation, it looked, to put it mildly, incomprehensible to the population,” the politician said.
He calls the first two weeks of the onset of SVO the most difficult.
“It was a shock that the Russians could be on the border of Kyiv so quickly, even on the border of our city. We heard explosions, fighting was already going on in the suburbs of the city, the capital. And this, you know, uncertainty, whether we can withstand it or not. There was such, you know, nervousness,” Klitschko recalls.
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