After last week's intensive Russian airstrikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the mayor of the capital Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, of not having set up enough warming spots for freezing residents.

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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At the beginning of last week, Zelenskyj said that 4,000 such contact points were being prepared across the country.

As "points of inflexibility", they should enable the population to persevere.

In administration and school buildings as well as in tents, citizens should be able to use electricity, mobile communications, the Internet, heat, water and emergency pharmacies free of charge.

On the night of Saturday, the President criticized that there had been complaints in some places, “especially in Kyiv”.

“There is still work to be done there, to put it mildly.

Please pay attention.

The people of Kiev need more protection.” Many residents of the capital had been without electricity for 20 to 30 hours.

"I expect quality work from the town hall." That is "the responsibility of every leading local politician" in the country.

Old competition from Klitschko and Selenskyj

On Saturday, Klitschko responded on Ukrainian television.

After almost the entire city was affected by the consequences of the shelling in the middle of the week, 95 percent of the buildings have heat again and 75 percent electricity.

The water supply works everywhere.

The city should therefore return to the "scheduled" power cuts on Sunday.

They protect the network from overload and give residents the opportunity to use electricity in good time and to charge batteries.

Klitschko told the newspaper "Bild am Sonntag" that the key to success after Russia's attack on Ukraine "is cohesion, both nationally and internationally".

The former boxing world champion went into politics in 2006 and won in 2014 for the first time in the direct election of the mayor in the city of three million.

In a nationwide survey of the popularity of leading politicians in the summer, Klitschko received a likeability rating of 63 percent.

This put him in third place, after Selenskyj (88 percent) and his adviser Oleksiy Arestovych.

The UDAR party led by Klitschko, a partner party of the CDU and CSU in the EPP, also received good ratings.

Klitschko is seen as a possible rival for Selenskyj at the state level;

before the war, the president tried to restrict Klitschko's powers in Kyiv.

For the first time during the war, the fierce Russian attacks on Wednesday caused all four of Ukraine's nuclear power plants to be shut down due to a voltage drop.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, had criticized this as "extremely worrying" and a historically unprecedented case and called for the "immediate cessation of all hostilities" that endanger the safety of nuclear facilities.

Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal announced on Sunday that the energy system had stabilized.

Nevertheless, there is a lack of capacity of almost 20 percent.

"Signs that Russians are preparing withdrawal from Zaporizhia NPP"

Regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the operator Enerhoatom announced that last week the Russians robbed a convoy with equipment and spare parts for the power plant at the Vasylivka checkpoint.

They took 45 heaters "for their own use," the company writes on its website.

On Sunday, Enerhoatom boss Petro Kotin spoke on Ukrainian television about "signs" that the Russians were preparing to withdraw from the power plant after nine months.

Kotin said that the Russian state media has been repeatedly discussing whether it makes sense to evacuate and "hand over" the nuclear power plant to the IAEA.