Zelensky turning Ukraine into authoritarian state just like Russia, says Kyiv mayor in shocking interview

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is becoming an autocrat who is reshaping Ukraine into an authoritarian state no different than Russia, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has shockingly claimed.

Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-politician, took the unprecedented step of publicly attacking Zelensky, an ex-comedian and actor, so vehemently for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 21 months ago.

While the pair have been political foes, such a blistering public condemnation was still shocking to many, given the country’s war crisis.

“At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” Klitschko said in a new interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel.

Klitschko, who has served as the mayor of Kyiv since 2014, praised his fellow mayors and regional governors for thwarting Ukraine’s descent into authoritarianism.

“There is currently only one independent institution, but enormous pressure is being exerted on it: local self-government,” he said.

Klitschko, who has clashed with Zelensky since the start of the war over the poor state of Kyiv’s emergency shelters, claimed that the president has become isolated and that they never meet or speak to one another — even though their offices are located only a short distance apart.

In a separate sit-down with the Swiss news site 20Minutes, Klitschko accused Zelensky of lying to the public about Ukraine’s progress in the bloody conflict.

The mayor said he agreed with Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian military’s commander in chief, when he said last month that the war had gone “into a stalemate” after a disappointing counteroffensive that failed to deliver a decisive blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

READ MORE HERE