Ukraine’s survival as an independent nation remains an “open question”, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has warned, as Russia intensifies its attacks on the Ukrainian capital and the US pushes for an end to the war on unfavourable terms.
Speaking inside his ninth-floor office in the hulking Kyiv City administration building and dressed in green military-style garb, Klitschko told the FT that relentless Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure over the past two months have brought Kyiv to the brink of catastrophe.
“Right now, the question of the future of our country — whether we will survive as an independent country or not is still open,” said the former international boxing champion turned mayor.
The city’s 3.5mn residents are enduring their harshest winter since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began. Temperatures have plunged below minus 20°C, and a thick layer of ice and snow blankets Kyiv. Russia has compounded residents’ hardship by launching hundreds of missiles and drones at a time, causing widespread outages to power, heating and water.
The bombs have targeted the three major power plants that Kyiv relies on for its central heating, as well as other energy facilities throughout the country.
About half of the capital’s 12,000 apartment buildings were at one point left without heating earlier this year. The entire city has faced numerous emergency power cuts. Heating has since been restored to most buildings, but about 1,200 were still disconnected earlier this week, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“If you want to kill someone, you shoot at the heart,” Klitschko said of Russia’s strategy to target the Ukrainian capital.
“The main goal of [Vladimir] Putin is not Donetsk, not Luhansk, not Crimea. His main goal is Kyiv and the whole of Ukraine,” he continued. “He wants to destroy our independence.”
Russia’s ballistic missiles have overwhelmed Ukraine’s air defences, many of which Zelenskyy said had been depleted of munitions. He blamed European partners for the gap that allowed Russia to cripple Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and bring Kyiv “to the brink of a blackout”.
Klitschko said the city’s utility and emergency workers have largely prevented that, but described their efforts as a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole. Russia’s repeated strikes knock out electricity, heating and water, workers fix it, then Russian forces strike again, forcing them to restart repairs “from zero”.
Ukraine still faces a nationwide electricity deficit, despite the repairs. European partners have helped with supplies of power generators and humanitarian aid, including in Kyiv, Klitschko said. Local authorities also set up some 1,500 “invincibility centres” where people can warm up, sleep, eat, charge their electronic devices and use Starlink terminals to connect to the internet.
Complicating the city’s response, Klitschko said, was a long-running political rivalry with Zelenskyy, which has again spilled into public view in recent weeks. The president has blamed the mayor for not properly preparing Kyiv for the harshest winter in more than a decade, while Klitschko has pointed the finger back.
Civil society groups have backed the president, accusing the mayor of not doing enough. In an open letter published earlier this week, 17 non-governmental organisations expressed “deep concern” about Kyiv’s mayorship.
“Kyiv is currently facing a governance, infrastructure and communications crisis, exacerbated by the war, shelling and rising social tensions,” they said, urging the mayor to meet with them and explain his strategy.
Klitschko has yet to respond to their call.
In the interview, he acknowledged his long-running animosity with Zelenskyy, which predates the war. The two men have tussled over control of the capital and what the mayor describes as presidential meddling in local government.
After martial law was imposed in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy moved to consolidate power, appointing the heads of military-civilian administrations at local level.
Klitschko argues that these wartime moves have weakened important decentralisation reforms once seen as a democratic success and heralded by Ukraine’s western partners.
Klitschko, whom more than 50 per cent of respondents in a recent poll said they do not trust, is also opposed to presidential elections being held in the absence of a ceasefire enforced by credible security guarantees. “Political competition during the war is bad,” the mayor said.
Zelenskyy has begun planning presidential elections alongside a referendum on any peace deal with Russia, after the Trump administration pressed him to hold both votes by May 15 or risk losing proposed US security guarantees.
Tensions between Klitschko and Zelenskyy flared up again when the mayor accused the president of ordering the pursuit of about 1,600 criminal cases he said are politically motivated since the start of the war. Only eight of those cases were heard in court, Klitschko said, and verdicts have been pronounced in just two.
Zelenskyy’s office has denied the allegations. But the president has levelled his own at the mayor.
Last month, Zelenskyy accused Klitschko of failing to adequately prepare the capital for winter, saying that Kyiv city authorities “did significantly less” than other major cities. “I don’t see intensity.”
Klitschko punched back, writing on Facebook: “What ‘intensity’ in Kyiv’s work during the emergency doesn’t the president see?” He argued that workers were working around the clock to restore utilities.
The boxer told the FT he hung up his gloves long ago and does not want to fight — especially with his compatriots.
“Russia’s goal is internal destabilisation,” Klitschko said, calling for a ceasefire not only with the Kremlin but also with the presidential administration. “Right now unity inside the country is the key for our peace and freedom.”