"Points of innocence." Opinion of Boris Filatov
Having watched the president's video in the evening, with the last percentage of battery remaining, about how things are going throughout the country four thousand are open Grateful Ukrainians (including editorial staff) at the "Points of Nezalamnosti" (Punctual Security Points) opened the published interactive map and traveled to the nearest points indicated there in hopes of receiving assistance. These points were in Kyiv, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, and Dnipro. However, the doors of many buildings, including schools, designated on the map as "Points of Nezalamnosti," were closedThere's no one waiting for anyone there. Was the president deceived? Did his entourage underperform? Did the Cabinet of Ministers fail to fulfill its mandate? Did the region screw up? Or is the city underperforming?
To make it easier for you to find your own answer, ZN spoke with the mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov.
It's important to understand that the goal of this conversation isn't to pit branches of government or individual personalities against each other, but to reach out to the government first and foremost. And let me remind you once again: mayors are not enemies. Our strength lies in unity. In the unity of a neighbor who helps another. In the unity of cafe managers who allow working customers who can't afford to pay more to sit all day over a cup of coffee. They don't have electricity at home, but they have to do their work online. Our strength lies in the unity of the government, the president, and the mayors, who must work together to maintain a domestic front.
Boris, you stated yesterday that the city's power grid would be maintained. What's the current situation, and how prepared are you for an even longer outage? Generators, heating stations, mobile boilers, finances, communication with the central government and city residents? Everything is important now.
"I just checked with the city's utilities and can confirm that Dnipro has recovered from the complete blackout. Water and heat are running everywhere, and in some areas, the vented systems still need to be repaired. However, it's important to understand that scheduled and emergency outages will continue."
The blackout that occurred in Dnipro on November 24th has never happened before, not even in the entire history of the war, but in the entire existence of Ukraine. I can explain the reasons not as an energy expert, but as a well-informed mayor. Given that they're affecting distribution capacity, even with high levels of generation, we simply can't redistribute this energy. That's why they started shutting down nuclear power plants yesterday—there was nowhere to dump the power.
As a result, the city collapsed completely. All the traffic lights went out, all the water utilities, both city and regional, stopped working. Where are our generators? I'll tell you. Two months ago, we purchased fifteen generators with a capacity of 400 to 800 kilowatts and 1 megawatt. Their main purpose is to pump out sewage, water from the metro, and to discharge water from the heating system in emergency situations during severe frosts. Using one of these powerful generators, we kept the boiler room that supplies heat to the maternity hospital operational. But this was an isolated incident, and we knew we had to keep it running no matter what.
Such generators consume a huge amount of fuel and are not capable of supporting the entire system within a city of a million people.
Moreover, these generators aren't designed to consistently supply power to all pumping stations; as I've already mentioned, they're meant to support the pumps at the water intake. In the event of a complete blackout, we'll have to pump out water and drain it from the system to prevent it from freezing.
We purchased the generators from a Ukrainian supplier, in accordance with Ukrainian procurement laws. However, he found them in Germany and Denmark because there was already a market rush in early autumn. Since we were purchasing high-power generators, these weren't standard products.
— And what money did you use to buy them?
"Everything we ordered and purchased during the war was financed exclusively by the city budget. I don't know about other cities, but the state doesn't give Dnipro a single kopeck. And if there are any good intentions at the top, given that I have a good relationship with the head of the regional military administration, I don't refuse."
- For example.
"For example, the head of the OVA, Valentin Reznichenko, calls me and tells me there's an order from the Presidential Office to open 'Punctuality Points.' We're going to open them with our own money."
The Opposition President's Office published an interactive map of such points, but they haven't been operational in Kyiv. This is according to people who trusted the authorities and went to schools in their neighborhoods. As the Kyiv administration told us, this map wasn't even coordinated with the city authorities. What kind of communication does Dnipro have with the center?
"Inna, well, I'm not going to comment on why the President's Office went and made such a map. Incidentally, we don't have anything in our schools yet either. Only in the territorial centers and district administration offices. So it's hard for me to judge who compiled these maps and how."
- So, the location is with you.Points of invincibility" also did not agree?
"No. I heard the head of the OVA, opened them where the account was needed, and gave him the addresses. What happened to them next and how they connected with the OPU map, I don't know."
"I'm confused, to say the least. We have the 'unbreakable' [unclear] regulations, but there are no designated warming points? But since summer, there's been talk of possible attacks on infrastructure. 1,4 billion hryvnias were allocated from the Reserve Fund for the purchase of mobile boiler units, and there have been clear recommendations from the Association of Ukrainian Cities to install warming points in schools that are suitable for receiving people and cover entire neighborhoods."
"We haven't seen any mini-boiler houses yet, nor any money. As I already told you. As for the schools, they're operating, and no one at the state level has made a strategic decision to convert them into 'Punctuality Points.' We're doing everything ourselves in our community, while also helping others. Right now, by order of the president, we've raised aid for Kherson—using our own budget. Dnipro is giving some, Kryvyi Rih is giving some, Kamianske is giving some. We've donated an emergency vehicle for the city water utility, a dump truck, an excavator, and a lot of humanitarian aid."
You see, given that I have no communication whatsoever with either the Cabinet of Ministers or the Opposition Platform, I have no idea how Kyrylo Tymoshenko planned to implement these points. But we have our own generators, Starlinks, flashlights, and so on, and we installed them wherever we could under the circumstances.
— How many points have you opened?
"Fifteen, equipped with everything necessary—diesel generators, fan heaters, phone chargers, kettles—and designated staff to handle the reception. We're currently deploying another forty to schools as a matter of urgency, fulfilling a belated order from the Prosecutor General's Office. But we have a reserve of generators that will be installed there to ensure independent power supply, as well as strategic fuel reserves."
"Points of non-violence"
"Points of innocence." Opinion of Boris Filatov
— How many people do you have in your city now?
"There are 180 officially displaced persons alone. Incidentally, that's more than in Lviv. In Lviv, there are 115. These are mainly from Donbas and Kharkiv. Kherson is moving toward Kryvyi Rih."
— How are you coping? Where do people live?
"They live wherever they can. From private shelters (we have a support program) to rented apartments. Some live in communal facilities... It's really Armageddon."
— And modular towns Chernyshova?
"There aren't any. Only one remains from 2014. So, to save you the long story, I'll give you a quick overview. Firstly, I don't have any communication with the central government. Secondly, Dnipro is considered a wealthy city and can manage on its own."
— What do you attribute the lack of communication to? Is it your friendship with Gennady Korban, or is this a systemic problem for local governments nationwide?
- Well, you should ask the office why it doesn’t communicate with the mayor of a regional center with a population of a million.
— What about communication through the Association of Cities? How is the dialogue going between all the mayors and the central government?
"The ASU doesn't deal with the problems of every territorial community. We have a board where we meet and discuss how they want to take away our powers or our money. We argue, fight, and squabble, and then we give the ASU executive director, Oleksandr Slobozhan, a mandate to resolve various issues, and he starts running back and forth between the Cabinet of Ministers, Parliament, and the Office of the President. But Slobozhan isn't involved in the modular campus in Dnipro or the warming stations in Kyiv."
— In his interview, Alexander Slobozhan said About 9 billion hryvnias in educational reverse subsidies saved by communities across the country. But they were taken away from you. Plus 26 billion hryvnias in outstanding tariff differences—Daniil Hetmantsev's bill has been in parliament for three months. Are these truly critical resources for communities in the current situation?
— Well, of course! All this is precisely about the equipped "Punctuality Points," generators, boiler houses—or, more accurately, about the priorities that were set correctly during the war. But anyway, you know, you've chosen the wrong person to talk to. No matter how hard things are for us, Dnipro really isn't a poor city, plus we have a large military contingent, a high income tax, and no significant expenses, since Resolution No. 590 prohibits all capital expenditures. And we're somehow scraping by, scraping by. But the mayor of Nizhyn (population 70) or the mayor of Ichnya (10)—no. People seriously ask, "Can you give me a generator?" And I say I can't. And they have nothing. Nothing. I can't imagine how small towns are surviving these days. The Czechs threw in a little something, the French did, the Canadians did…
- Well, it's war.
— That's exactly the point. I haven't yet met a single mayor who was satisfied with their communication with the central government. And this isn't just a conflict between individuals; it's a ideological conflict that's been going on for years. A complete misunderstanding of the essence of local self-government. We met with French President Emmanuel Macron with a delegation of Ukrainian mayors. He clearly stated that France intends to further deepen decentralization because, thanks to this reform, France is becoming stronger. And the central government is becoming stronger. That's called governmental thinking. But our mayors are either competitors, or get in the way, or just talk too much. And during the war, all of this became very acute.
— In a recent article in Forbes Ukraine, Nobel Prize winner in economics Roger Myerson cited the decentralization implemented in Ukraine on the eve of the war with Russia as one of the key reasons for Ukrainians' resilience. And that's precisely the case. But, unfortunately, deepening decentralization for the sake of strengthening the state and riding on the shoulders of mayors during a severe crisis are two different things. Do you think we could see a rollback in reforms during the war?
"I believe that a misunderstanding of the essence of local self-government can lead to anything. As an experienced colleague told me yesterday in a private conversation while walking around Paris, they're trying to fit mayors into the vertical. They don't understand that we're simply a different level of power. We're not rivals, competitors, or political opponents. Plus, of course, there are personalized aspects. The late Gennady Kernes once told me that he'd outlived so many presidents, prime ministers, and governors that he couldn't even remember their names. But here, any governor comes along and thinks they have the right—since they were appointed by the president—to bully the mayor. But do you know how many governors like that we've seen in our lives? And I'm not talking about Valentin Reznicenko. If the governor is smart, dialogue is possible."
- It would be nice if he was also honest, and here your counterpart clearly doesn’t pass the selection.
"That's a different story, and I hardly need to comment on it now. I'm more concerned about why a Ukrainian mayor, both in times of peace and in times of war, must find himself in conflict with the central government."
— Good question. But let's get back to boilers and generators. European officials say they'll save us and supply generators for 10 million people. How many generators do you need per city?
"I'm not counting by the piece, but by the sums. In the near future, we will be allocating another 120 million hryvnia from the city budget to purchase large generators capable of supporting all pumping stations, as well as to pump water out of the metro. We also have a problem—the unfinished, abandoned metro. It needs constant pumping, otherwise it will collapse. And here, too, no one is offering us anything. Another example of communication. You remember the penultimate massive shelling, when the Russians hit the YuMZ. And the esteemed Denys Anatolyevich Shmygal suddenly said dramatically, 'They were shooting at our YuMZ.' But let's remember, esteemed Prime Minister, how the mayor of Dnipro called you at the beginning of the war, back in April, and said that if they hit the YuMZ, there would be disaster. 'Yes, yes, fine, we'll solve everything...'"
- And what?
— And nothing. As a result, we spent 100 million hryvnias from the local budget on building shelters over the Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant. Do you think anyone got a single penny back? And just so you understand, after the war, I'll still be going to the prosecutor's office and explaining why I spent municipal funds on a state-owned enterprise. And they'll point out that I used the wrong concrete, or the wrong rebar, or the wrong mesh. Is it really normal that during the war, I never spoke to either the prime minister or the president? I spoke to the French, but not to my own.
— We are entering winter at the most difficult time—either we will survive, or… What or who are you counting on?
— Relying solely on my own strengths and people. Let me explain. I've established excellent relationships with DTEK and OVA, including at the executive level; we don't backfire on each other or do anything nasty. I also have excellent relations with the gas companies that formerly belonged to Firtash. I simply prefer to work every day. I remember well from school the thesis about the role of personality in history. Like any other mayor, I don't overestimate myself, but I know how much, what, and where depends on me. The more smart and professional people I have around, the greater the chances of succeeding. At the same time, I don't intend to intrude on the central government or ask for anything. That said, I can understand the level of the president and his office's tasks right now, but I can't at all with the prime minister. But the main thing is to let them stay out of the way. Constant criminal cases are a hindrance. All my directors of key public utilities, critical infrastructure, are under investigation by the prosecutor's office. But only when there's another air strike, they're supposed to restore power and water within 24 hours, and so on. The police don't seem to think much about this.
Well, I'll say in the end that after I refused the record-breaking bribe, a lot of people were upset. They said Filatov had fallen out of line. I won't name names. Instead of supporting me, they started looking at me askance. But in any case, the most important thing now is for us to win the war. And survive. Monotonously stretching out our own straps, each day.
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