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2 Dec, 2023 20:59
Zelensky has devolved into authoritarianism – Kiev mayor
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| FILE PHOTO. Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko. © Getty Images / NurPhoto |
Ukraine’s municipal authorities now remain the only independent force in the country, which has grown increasingly authoritarian amid the conflict with Russia, the Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko has said.
Klitschko shared his assessment of the state of ‘democracy’ in Ukraine in an interview with German daily Der Spiegel, published on Friday. The country’s governing institutes have greatly deteriorated amid the hostilities, with local municipal authorities effectively remaining the only independent force standing, he asserted.
“Ukraine is on the path to authoritarianism,” the mayor said. “There is only one independent institution left –local authorities– and they are under enormous pressure.”
During the conflict, the central government has been communicating poorly, if at all, with local authorities, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital claimed.
“In a year and a half since the beginning of the conflict with Russia, there has not been a single meeting or telephone conversation between [the city of] Kiev and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. At some point, we will get to the situation where everything depends on the mood of a single person,” Klitschko told Der Spiegel.
Boxing star-turned-politician Klitschko was elevated to his position shortly after Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan coup, remaining one of the few Poroshenko-era officials to retain his post under Zelensky.
Over the past few months, relations between the capital’s mayor and the central government have been marred by multiple public spats. In June, for instance, the national government reprimanded Klitschko over the state of the city’s bomb shelters, with the heads of two districts and two acting district heads dismissed from their posts over their failure to keep the facilities operational.
- In early November, the mayor said the troops were moving “slowly” and were unable to “swiftly breach” fortifications erected by Russia.
- The mayor’s assessment drastically contrasted with the stance taken by the president at the time, who was insisting the counteroffensive was still going on and consistently denied any setbacks.
Zelensky has devolved into authoritarianism - Kiev mayor
All of Ukraine is becoming dependent on the "mood" of a single person, Vitaly Klitschko says
Klitschko shared his assessment of the state of 'democracy' in Ukraine in an interview with German daily Der Spiegel, published on Friday.
White House admits time running out for Ukraine cash
The White House urgently needs supplemental funding to continue supporting Ukraine, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has admitted. The official added that the Biden administration effectively only has until the end of the year until it gets “really hard” to continue propping up Kiev.
Kirby made the remarks on Thursday during a joint press briefing with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The official claimed a new Russian campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure was imminent, and, despite the US and Kiev “working aggressively” for months to prepare for it, there were still things to be done, he warned.
“We have more work to do in support of Ukraine, and we need Congress to take action to pass additional supplemental funding so that we can keep providing Ukraine with air-defense assess – assets, the protection equipment, and the backup supplies that they need,” Kirby stated.
The window of opportunity for securing the funding is getting narrower, the official admitted, urging Congress to allocate it finally. “The supplemental funding is important. We didn’t pull those figures out of thin air. We need that funding. We continue to urge Congress to pass that supplemental as soon as possible,” he said.
Again, as I said before many times, the runway is getting shorter. And we think we got until, you know, about the end of the year before it gets really, really hard to continue to support Ukraine. And the end of the year is coming soon.
For weeks, the Biden administration has unsuccessfully tried to push its new “national security” funding package for Kiev through Congress. The latest iteration of the package includes roughly $106 billion for combined aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
The new attempt to pass the package will be undertaken in the first week of December, according to US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. According to Schumer, “the biggest holdup” to passing the supplementary funding was the opposition of Republicans and their insistence on tying foreign aid to US border security policy changes.
“One of the most important tasks we must finish is taking up and passing a funding bill to ensure we, as well as our friends and partners in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region, have the necessary military capabilities to confront and deter our adversaries and competitors,” Schumer wrote in a letter to senators last Sunday. The senior lawmaker claimed that Kiev was likely to lose the conflict with Russia without receiving further funding from the US.
Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US has provided Kiev with more than $76 billion in military hardware and other aid but recently warned that available funds were running out.
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