The first plenary session of this year began with the mayor's complaints about the fight against corruption
The capital's representatives returned to the session hall for the first time since the beginning of the year. On Thursday, January 30, the Kyiv City Council allocated additional funds for the "Defender of Kyiv" program, introduced a moment of silence alert in the capital, and listened to Klitschko's ritual lament about the evil law enforcement officers searching for some unclear corruption within the crystal-clear city administration.
Read about the most interesting moments of the session in the new article from Kashtan NEWS.
Corruption. What corruption?
The first plenary session of 2025 started with the traditional complaints from the mayor about persecution by the central authorities.
“Endless searches are disrupting the work of municipal enterprises, demoralizing employees, and 2024 was particularly indicative. All law enforcement agencies of Ukraine are involved in the investigative actions concerning the officials of Kyiv,” Vitali Klitschko lamented at the opening of the session.
According to him, in their quest to find corruption in the Kyiv City State Administration, which does not exist and cannot exist, the malicious law enforcement officers conducted 200 searches, 500 interrogations, seized 400 documents, issued almost 100 suspicions, and shamelessly visited officials not only in their offices but also at home.
Since such lamentations have become almost a ritual part of the beginning of plenary sessions over the past six months, the deputies were not particularly surprised and, after politely applauding Klitschko's grievances, moved on to form the agenda.
Once again, as is customary, the planned agenda immediately became filled with urgent submissions and shed everything that seemed unnecessary to the deputies during the voting. Among the unnecessary items was predictably the draft resolution "On certain measures for the preservation of buildings and structures that are over 100 years old". This draft was voted on three times at the previous session on December 12 but was not adopted. This time, the ancient buildings also faced misfortune: thanks to the efforts of Kyiv City Council Secretary Volodymyr Bondarenko and the head of the landscaping commission Vahan Tovmasyan (the "Unity" faction), the consideration of the draft was postponed to the next session.
A brothel in the building where Klitschko lives
There were also statements during the speeches from the factions. In particular, several questions accumulated within the "Servants of the People." For example, the head of the "Servants of the People" faction Andriy Vitrenko publicly reminded Vitali Klitschko that he still had not signed the resolution regarding the Kyiv City Council's appeal to Kyiv's sister cities for support and implementation of the Ukrainian Victory Plan, presented by President Volodymyr Zelensky. The resolution was voted on back on October 31, but the mayor's hands had not reached it for three months.
0 In turn, Ksenia Semenova inquired about the fate of the club "Tootsie," located in the building where Klitschko resides, under the sign of which, as revealed by law enforcement, an underground brothel operated.
“If we are already talking about political issues, I request that the next address from the mayor begins with a statement about the brothel that belongs to his family,” Ksenia Semenova called out.
However, since the mayor left the plenary session immediately after it began, as is his custom, the deputy from the "Servants of the People" did not receive a response to her call. Instead, Kyiv City Council Secretary Bondarenko gave a protocol instruction to the regulations committee to consider whether Semenova's words contradicted deputy ethics.
“The sexual exploitation of employees at the club owned by the mayor's brother and head of his party is ethical. Asking whether this is even normal is not ethical. Don't get it mixed up,” commented Ksenia Semenova later on her Telegram channel.
1 Back to work!
Overall, the work at yesterday's session was not particularly active: the quorum constantly tried to disperse, so a lunch break had to be announced, even though in the morning the deputies agreed to work without lunch. Nevertheless, on January 30, the Kyiv City Council managed to adopt:
- an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine regarding the elimination of the discrepancy in the amounts of one-time monetary assistance for the families of Defenders who died before and after February 24, 2022;
- another appeal (also to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) proposing amendments to the Budget Code that would allow for planned financing of the needs of the Defense Forces from local budgets;
- an appeal to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine calling for measures to preserve the Kyiv Fortress;
- the introduction of measures for conducting a daily nationwide moment of silence in Kyiv (from now on, its commencement will be announced via push notifications in "Kyiv Digital," through sound notification systems in public transport and on the streets in the city center, on Khreshchatyk and Maidan Nezalezhnosti, as well as via digital advertising screens);
- an increase in one-time material assistance for mobilized Kyiv residents to UAH 50,000;
- an additional allocation of UAH 1.5 billion for the construction of shelters in educational institutions (in the budget for 2025, adopted a month and a half ago, only UAH 391.1 million was allocated for this construction).
Another important change to the 2025 budget adopted by the deputies was the allocation of UAH 5 billion for the needs of the Defense Forces.
2 “In particular, UAH 4.9 billion will be directed to the "Defender of Kyiv" program. We are additionally allocating over UAH 93 million for the social protection of veterans. Another UAH 10 million is planned as a subsidy from the capital to the State Budget of Ukraine to ensure defense measures,” Kyiv City State Administration head Vitali Klitschko stated at the beginning of the session.
In turn, the head of the Kyiv Military Administration Timur Tkachенко called this decision “a truly necessary and correct step,” but noted that Kyiv can assist the Defense Forces even more, as almost UAH 14 billion remained unspent in the city budget since last year. In Timur Tkachенко's opinion, this money could be directed towards repairing and equipping shelters, restoring houses damaged by shelling, and other critically important issues for Kyiv.
What the capital will do with this leftover money remains unknown: after working until five in the evening, the deputies decided they were tired, and the continuation of the session was postponed to Tuesday, February 4.
To be continued…
Konstantin MYKHAILENKO