Ukrainians will freeze to death this winter if the West does not urgently send blankets and generators to keep them warm, Vitali Klitschko has said, Report informs referring to The Telegraph.
The 51-year-old mayor of Kyiv, and former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, told The Telegraph that increasing Russian attacks on power plants have left his country on the brink of a fresh humanitarian crisis.
“We are doing everything we can do to save the lives of our people and to protect them,” he said.
“But this winter will definitely be a huge challenge for us.”
In little over a fortnight, Moscow’s strikes on power stations and the wider grid have left the country grappling with outages and questioning whether the system will survive the harsh winter months.
As the mayor of Kyiv since 2014, Klitschko set his heart on delivering new homes, high-paying jobs and a sustainable welfare system to the Ukrainian capital’s residents.
But now it pained him to warn the country’s “greatest asset”, its people, to stay away this winter.
“The risk of a humanitarian issue is pretty big, if they [Ukrainians] have an opportunity to stay outside of Ukraine this winter, please stay there,” he conceded.
“But our main goal is to bring our people back, the biggest value of Ukraine is our citizens and our people.”