MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. The situation with bomb shelters in Kiev is critical, with nearly half of such facilities failing to meet requirements, Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries Alexander Kamyshin said on Monday.
"We have summed up the results of the second day of the work of the commission for inspecting shelters in Kiev. A third of the city’s bomb shelters have been inspected by now. The situation is critical: half of the inspected facilities are not ready," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said earlier on Monday that the commission had inspected more than 1,600 bomb shelters.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned Kiev city officials about their accountability for the improper maintenance of bomb shelters. In response, Klitschko suggested that this accountability be shared with the president given that such facilities are controlled by the heads of city districts and the chief of the military administration, who in turn are appointed by the president. The Kiev mayor recalled that he is not authorized to even issue a reprimand to the head of a city district, let alone dismiss him or her.
The issue of bomb shelters was raised in Ukraine in mid-May when people in a number of Ukrainian cities could not get inside shelters during air raids. Kiev residents were faced with this problem during the night on June 1. On the following day, a petition demanding Klitschko’s resignation for the period of the shelter inspection was uploaded to the president’s website. Klitschko, however, claims that the pressure on him comes from Zelensky’s team, who are afraid of his potential participation in future elections.