Klitschko Urged Kyiv Residents Who Have Somewhere to Go to Leave: "Today It's About Survival"

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told residents of the capital who have relatives or friends outside Kyiv to consider leaving temporarily. "Every day new reports arrive of destroyed buildings, injured and killed, because the attacks on our city are intensifying. Today it's about survival," Klitschko said.

Klitschko stressed that he is not calling for a full evacuation. But he warned that new strikes on the water and power grid could cause an even more serious crisis in the coming winter. When the mayor of a city of millions starts advising who has somewhere to go, it is an admission that the city can no longer guarantee the basic conditions for life.

The metro stopped, taxis got pricier

How grim the situation is became clear on October 8. Because of power supply cuts, all three metro lines were temporarily shut down, some trams and trolleybuses stopped too, and huge traffic jams built up on the streets. The metro later started running again, but with longer intervals between trains, and city authorities were preparing extra buses to replace electric transport.

The market reacted faster than the institutions. According to Ukrainian media, a taxi ride from Independence Square to the Osokorky neighborhood cost 1,101 hryvnias in the standard category, and as much as 1,362 hryvnias in the premium one. When public transport stops, those with no other choice pay the most.

It wasn't only the trains that lost power. Water supply was disrupted in several Kyiv districts, and some buildings of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, were also left without electricity.

Who will stay in Kyiv?

In this atmosphere, a claim surfaced from Oleg Soskin, a former adviser to former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. On his YouTube channel, Soskin claims Zelensky is afraid that government members and MPs could leave Kyiv. "Zelensky is terribly afraid of that, because then he would be left alone in the city," he said.

It is worth saying clearly: there is no confirmation of such a scenario so far. There are no signs that the government or the Verkhovna Rada are preparing to leave the capital, and Soskin is speaking from his own channel, not from the offices of power. But the fact that stories like this find an audience says a lot about the mood in a city where the metro stops and the mayor advises leaving. The Balkans remember sieges and cities without power and water - and know that winter in such a city is a front of its own.