Zelenksy’s biggest fight… his duel with Kyiv mayor, former boxer Vitali Klitschko

In a sign of simmering political tension within the Ukrainian ranks, Volodymyr Zelensky has clashed with Kyiv mayor and former boxer Vitali Klitschko after three residents died in a missile strike because they were locked out of a bomb shelter.

There is no love lost between the pair, who have clashed since the war began, and in a scathing attack on Klitschko, Zelensky said that as well as facing the Russian enemy, ‘we also have internal ones’.

A furious Zelensky said if Kyiv’s local officials were incapable of protecting residents by keeping bomb shelters open, they will be prosecuted and face a ‘knockout’ blow in a thinly veiled dig at the former heavyweight boxing champion. 

Police have now opened a criminal investigation after a nine-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed in the Russian missile strike on Thursday after the air raid shelter they ran to failed to open. 

Zelensky, in his nightly video message, said shelters ‘must be kept accessible. Never again should we see a repeat of the situation that occurred last night in Kyiv.’ 

In a sign of simmering political tension within the Ukrainian ranks, Volodymyr Zelensky (left) has clashed with Kyiv mayor and former boxer Vitali Klitschko (right) after three residents died in a missile strike because they were locked out of a bomb shelter

There is no love lost between the pair, who have clashed since the war began, and in a scathing attack on Klitschko, Zelensky (pictured in Moldova) said that as well as facing the Russian enemy, ‘we also have internal ones’

This was ‘very clearly’ the duty of local authorities to ‘ensure the shelters are available and accessible around the clock’. 

‘It is painful to see the negligence of this duty. It is painful to see casualties. And if the duty is not fulfilled on the ground, it is the direct responsibility of law enforcement bodies to prosecute.’

In earlier comments to reporters in Moldova, Zelensky said that as well as facing the Russian enemy, ‘we also have internal ones’. He said the response could be a ‘knockout’ blow, a veiled dig at Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion. 

‘People will answer for the fact that there were those who couldn’t get into the bomb shelter and, unfortunately, died. As if it wasn’t enough to have Russia as an enemy, we also have internal ones,’ a visibly angry Zelensky said before adding, ‘there could be a ‘knockout’. 

Zelensky and Klitschko have butted heads since the war began. 

In December, the Ukrainian President criticised Klitschko and his city officials had not done enough to provide enough emergency shelters to help Ukrainians without power and heat after Russian attacks on the energy system.

‘Unfortunately, local authorities have not performed well in all cities. In particular, there are a lot of complaints in Kyiv,’ Zelensky said at the time. 

‘To put it mildly, more work is needed,’ he said, adding the level of services available in many Kyiv centres was not good enough.

‘Please pay attention – the people of Kyiv need more support … a lot of [them] have been without power for 20 or even 30 hours. We expect quality work from the mayor’s office.’ 

Klitschko later dismissed the criticism about the preparations for winter, saying he believed it was driven by politics and that it looked ‘strange’ to foreign governments that are supporting Ukraine. 

Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko takes cover inside shelter with local residents during an air raid alert on Thursday 

Rescuers and medical workers assist an elderly woman whose daughter and granddaughter died in the missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday. The bomb shelter they ran to was closed 

A relative sits next to the covered body of a 9-year-old girl near a health center damaged in a missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday

‘It looks strange when we are united against a single enemy, but we start to fight within the country,’ he said.

‘Our foreign partners say ‘you have a common enemy, but you cannot work things out among yourselves.”

‘I am convinced that politics is behind this, because representatives of one political group began to run around trying to find faults (in Kyiv),’ Klitschko said at the time.

Within Zelensky’s circle, Klitschko, who was elected as mayor of Kyiv in 2014, is seen as a serious political rival still. 

The Kyiv mayor is reportedly planning to resurrect his UDAR political party and could could become leader of an alliance of disgruntled regional elites, according to think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

‘As Ukrainian politics begins to come back to life, the conflict between the presidential administration and the Kyiv mayor is only like to grow,’ researcher Konstantin Skorkin said. 

Klitschko, now in his ninth year as mayor, was seen as one of Zelensky’s highest-profile political opponents before the Russian invasion and they often clashed over politics. 

Klitschko is an ally of former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, the leader of the opposition party European Solidarity, and the pair could pose a threat to Zelensky’s leadership. 

In 2019, Klitschko lashed out at Zelensky and accused his government of an ‘illegal’ attempt to curb his powers as Kyiv’s mayor. 

Zelensky controls the majority of Ukraine’s parliament and if he removed Klitschko as town mayor, it would mean he could put an ally in charge of the capital. And in July 2019, the Ukrainian president called for Klitschko to lose some of his powers.

At the time, Klitschko accused Zelensky’s government of trying to ‘eliminate me and appoint a person who was not chosen by Kyiv residents’. 

According to the law, Kyiv’s elected mayor must also carry out the administrative role, Klitschko said at the time, accusing Zelensky of wanting to establish ‘direct presidential rule’ in the capital. 

People take shelter in a subway station, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, on Friday

A person takes shelter in a subway station in Kyiv on Friday 

The renewed political spat comes as Ukrainian forces in Kyiv said on Friday they shot down more than 30 Russian missiles and drones overnight and two people were injured by falling debris, before authorities lifted air raid alerts across most of the country.

Russia has launched about 20 separate missiles and drone strikes against Ukrainian cities since the beginning of May.

Kyiv military authorities, writing on Telegram, said Russia had launched drones and cruise missiles at the same time.

‘According to preliminary information, more than 30 air targets of various types were detected and destroyed in the airspace over and around Kyiv by air defence forces,’ they said in a statement.

Klitschko, who earlier reported two separate waves of attacks, wrote on Telegram that there had been no calls for rescue services.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had launched 15 missiles and 18 drones.

Kyiv region authorities said two people were injured as a result of falling debris, including a child.

‘In addition, the falling debris damaged five private houses,’ the state administration said on the Telegram messaging service.