“Points of innocence.” Opinion of Boris Filatov
Having watched in the evening at the last percentage of charging the president’s video that throughout the country open four thousand “Points of non-violence”, Ukrainians grateful to the state (among whom were editorial staff) opened the published interactive map and went to the nearest points indicated there in the hope of help. In Kyiv, Lvov, Krivoy Rog or Dnieper. However, the doors of many premises, including schools, indicated on the map as “Non-breaking Points” were closed. No one is waiting for anyone there. Was the President deceived? Is the environment not working properly? Has the Cabinet of Ministers failed to complete its task? Did the region fail? Or is there a worthless mayor in the city?
To make it easier for you to find your own answer, ZN spoke with the mayor of Dnieper Boris Filatov.
It is important to understand that the goal of this conversation is not to push branches of government or individual personalities into conflict, but to reach the government first. And let me remind you again: mayors are not enemies. Only in unity is our strength. In the unity of a neighbor who helps another. In the unity of cafe managers who allow working clients who can no longer pay to sit all day over a cup of coffee. They don’t have electricity at home, but they have to do their work via the Internet. Our strength is in the unity of the government, the president and mayors, who together must maintain the internal front.
— Boris, yesterday you announced that the city’s energy system will be maintained. What is the situation now and how prepared are you for an even longer blackout? Generators, heating points, mobile boiler houses, finance, communication with the central government and citizens? Everything is important now.
— I just checked the situation with city utilities and I can say that today the Dnieper has come out of a complete blackout. There is a supply of water and heat everywhere; in some places it remains to hold out the air-depleted systems. However, it is important to understand that planned and emergency shutdowns will continue.
The blackout that happened in the Dnieper on November 24 has not happened not only in the entire history of the war, but in the entire existence of Ukraine. I can explain the reasons not as an energy engineer, but at the level of a well-informed mayor. Taking into account the fact that they hit distribution capacities, even with a high level of generation, it is simply impossible for us to redistribute this energy. That’s why yesterday they started shutting down nuclear power plants—there was nowhere to dump electricity.
As a result, the city experienced complete collapse. All traffic lights went out, all water utilities stopped, both city and regional. Where are our generators? I answer. Two months ago, we bought fifteen generators with a capacity of 400 to 800 kilowatts and 1 megawatt, the main task of which is to pump out sewage drains, water from the metro and emergency discharge of water from the heating system in case of severe frosts. Using one of these powerful generators, we kept the boiler room in working order, which provides heat to the maternity hospital. But this is an isolated case when we understood that we needed to keep it under any circumstances.
Such generators consume a huge amount of fuel and within a city of a million people are not able to support the entire system.
Moreover, these generators are not designed to ensure that we will stably maintain the power of all pumping stations, but, as I already said, they imply support for pumps at the water intake. When, in the event of a complete blackout, you will have to pump out water and dump it from the system so that it does not freeze.
The generators were purchased from a Ukrainian supplier, in accordance with Ukrainian procurement legislation. But he found them in Germany and Denmark, because already at the beginning of autumn there was a rush in the market. And since we purchased high-power generators, this is no longer a serial product range.
– How much money did you buy them with?
“Everything that we ordered and bought during the war was done exclusively with money from the city budget. I don’t know about other cities, but the state doesn’t give Dnieper a penny. And if there are some good wishes at the top, taking into account the fact that I have developed normal relations with the head of the regional military administration, I do not refuse.
– For example.
On topic: After “handling” with Ermak, Reznichenko wants to pour another 1.5 billion hryvnia onto the asphalt in December
“For example, the head of the OVA, Valentin Reznichenko, calls me and says that there is an order from the president’s office to open “Non-Breakness Points.” We go and open them with our own money.
— OPU published an interactive map of such points, but they did not work in Kyiv. This is told by people who believed the authorities and went to schools in their neighborhoods. As the city administration commented to us, this map was not approved by the city authorities at all. What kind of communication does Dnieper have with the Center?
— Inna, well, I won’t comment on why the president’s office took and made such a map. By the way, we also don’t have anything in our schools yet. Only in regional centers and district administrations. Therefore, it is difficult for me to judge who compiled these maps and how.
– That is, there is goodwill with you “Non-violence points“Didn’t agree either?
– 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 it fit in with the OPU map, I don’t know.
“I’m confused, to put it mildly.” We have “nezlamni”, but there are no points for them? But since the summer there has been talk about possible attacks on infrastructure, 1.4 billion hryvnia were allocated from the Reserve Fund for the purchase of mobile boiler houses, and there were also clear recommendations from the Association of Ukrainian Cities to equip heating points in schools that are suitable for receiving people and covering neighborhoods .
“We haven’t seen any mini-boiler houses yet, and we haven’t seen any money either.” As I already told you. As for schools, they are working, and no one at the state level has made a strategic decision to convert them into “Non-Breakness Points.” We do everything in our community ourselves, while at the same time helping others. Now, by order of the president, they have collected assistance for Kherson using their own budget funds. The Dnieper gives something, Krivoy Rog gives something, Kamenskoye gives something. We provided an emergency vehicle for the city water utility, a dump truck, an excavator and a lot of humanitarian aid.
You see, given the fact that I have no communication at all with either the Cabinet of Ministers or the Public Administration, I have no idea how Kirill Tymoshenko was going to do these points. But we have our own generators, Starlinks, flashlights, etc., we equipped them at our discretion where we could under the given circumstances.
— How many points have you opened?
– Fifteen, equipped with everything necessary – diesel generators, fan heaters, phone chargers, kettles, responsible employees have been identified to receive people. At the moment, in emergency order, fulfilling the belated order of the Public Administration, we are deploying another forty in schools. But we have a supply of generators that will be installed there to ensure an independent power supply, and strategic reserves of fuel.

“Points of non-violence”

“Points of innocence.” Opinion of Boris Filatov
— How many people do you have in the city now?
— There are 180 thousand official migrants alone. This, by the way, is more than in Lviv. In Lviv – 115 thousand. These are mainly Donbass and Kharkov. Kherson goes to Krivoy Rog.
– How are you coping? Where do people live?
“Where they can, they live there.” Starting from private shelters (we have a support program) to apartment rentals. Somewhere they live in communal bases… In fact, this is Armageddon.
— What about the modular towns of Chernyshov?
– There are none. Only since 2014 there has been only one left. That is, in order not to tell you for a long time, I’ll tell you briefly. Firstly, I have no communication with the central government. Secondly, it is believed that Dnepr is a rich city, and it will somehow cope on its own.
— What do you attribute the lack of communication to? With your friendship with Gennady Korban or is this a systemic problem for local governments throughout the country?
— Well, you need to ask the office why it doesn’t communicate with the mayor of the regional center with a population of one million.
— What about communication through the Association of Cities? How is the dialogue between all the mayors and the central government going?
— ASU does not deal with the problems of each territorial community. There is a board where we gather and discuss how they want to take away our powers or our money. We argue, scandal, swear, and then we give the executive director of the ASU, Alexander Slobozhan, a mandate to resolve certain issues, and he begins to run from the Cabinet of Ministers to the parliament, then to the OPU and back. But Slobozhan is not involved in a modular town in the Dnieper or heating points in Kyiv.
— In his interview with Alexander Slobozhan stated about 9 billion hryvnia in educational reverse subsidies, which communities across the country saved. But it was taken from you. Plus 26 billion hryvnia of the outstanding tariff difference – Daniil Getmantsev’s bill is in its third month in parliament. Are these really critical resources for communities in the current situation?
– Well, of course! All these are precisely equipped “Non-Greek Points”, generators, boiler rooms, or rather, priorities that were correctly set during the war. In general, you know, you chose the wrong interlocutor. No matter how hard it is for us, Dnepr is really not a poor city, plus we have a large military group, high personal income tax, and there are no special expenses, since according to Resolution No. 590, all capital expenses are prohibited. And we somehow struggle and pull. But the mayor of Nizhyn (70 thousand population) or the mayor of Ichnya (10 thousand) – no. People ask in all seriousness: “Can you give me a generator?” And I say I can’t. But they have nothing. At all. I can’t imagine how small towns survive these days. The Czechs planted something there, the French there, the Canadians there…
– Well, then it’s war.
– That’s the point. I have not yet met a single mayor who would be satisfied with communication with the central government. And this is not just some kind of conflict between individual personalities, this is an ideological story that lasts for years. Complete misunderstanding of the essence of local government. A delegation of Ukrainian mayors and I met with French President Emmanuel Macron. So he clearly said that France intends to further deepen decentralization, because thanks to this reform France is becoming stronger. And the central government becomes stronger. This is called statesmanship. But our mayors are either competitors, or get in the way, or talk a lot. And during the war, all this became very aggravated.
— Nobel Prize winner in economics Roger Myerson, in a recent article in Forbes Ukraine, cited the decentralization carried out in Ukraine on the eve of the war with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) as one of the key reasons for the resilience of Ukrainians. So, in fact, it turns out. But, unfortunately, deepening decentralization for the sake of strengthening the state and riding on the shoulders of mayors into a severe crisis are slightly different things. Do you think that we may experience a setback in reform against the backdrop of the war?
“I believe that against the backdrop of a lack of understanding of the essence of local self-government, anything can happen. As one experienced colleague told me yesterday in a private conversation, while walking around Paris, they are trying to integrate mayors into a vertical. Not realizing that we are just another level of power. We are not rivals, not competitors or political opponents. Plus, of course, there are personalized moments. The late Gennady Kernes once told me that he had outlived so many presidents, prime ministers and governors that he no longer even remembered their names. And here any governor comes and believes that he has the right – since he was appointed by the president – to bully the mayor. Only we have seen such governors in our lives, do you know how many?.. By the way, I don’t mean Valentin Reznichenko. If the governor is smart, then dialogue is possible.
– It’s not bad to be honest, and here your counterpart clearly does not pass the selection.
– This is another story, and I hardly need to comment on it now. I am more concerned about why the Ukrainian mayor, both during peace and during war, should be in confrontation with the central government.
– Good question. But let’s get back to boiler rooms and generators. European representatives say that Europe will save us and supply generators for 10 million people. How many generators do you need for your city?
— I don’t count individually, but by amounts. In the near future, we will allocate another 120 million hryvnia from the city budget for the purchase of large generators that can support all pumping stations, as well as pumping water from the metro. We still have a problem – the unfinished metro, abandoned. Water must be constantly pumped out from there, otherwise it will fall underground. And here, too, no one offers us anything. Another example of communication. Do you remember the penultimate massive shelling, when the Russians hit YuMZ. And respected Denis Anatolyevich Shmygal suddenly said dramatically that “they were shooting at our YuMZ.” Just let us remember, dear Prime Minister, how the mayor of Dnieper at the beginning of the war, back in April, called you and said that if they hit YuMZ, there would be trouble. “Yes, yes, okay, we’ll solve everything…”
– And what?
– And nothing. As a result, we spent 100 million hryvnia from the local budget on the construction of shelters over the YuMZ. Do you think anyone returned at least a penny? And, so you understand, after the war I will still go to the prosecutor’s office and tell him why I spent municipal money on a state enterprise. And they will point out to me that I took the wrong concrete and the wrong reinforcement or welded the wrong mesh. Well, is it normal that during the war I never spoke with either the prime minister or the president? I talked to the French, but not to my own people.
– We are entering winter at the most difficult time – either we will survive, or… What or who are you counting on?
— Reliance solely on one’s own strengths and people. Let me explain. I have established excellent relations with DTEK, OVA, including at the level of performers; we do not intrigue each other, we do not do nasty things. Excellent relations with gas companies that previously belonged to Firtash. I just prefer to work every day. I remember well from school the thesis about the role of the individual 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 there are around, the greater the chances of coping. At the same time, I’m not going to get in the way of the central government and ask for something. At the same time, I can understand the level of tasks of the president and his office now, but I cannot understand the prime minister at all. But the main thing is not to let them interfere. Constant criminal cases are a hindrance. All my directors of key public utilities of critical infrastructure are under prosecution. But only when the next arrival, they must restore the light and provide water for a day and so on. The police don’t think much about it.
Well, I’ll say in the finale that after I refused the record bribe, a lot of people were screwed. They say that Filatov has fallen out of line. I won’t name names. Instead of supporting me, they started looking at me askance. But in any case, the main thing now is that we win the war. And they survived. Monotonously stretching out each of his straps every day.
DOSSIER: Boris Filatov: raider, liar, boor
Alexey Chernyshev: from the past life of the new Kyiv governor. PART 1
On topic: Dnepr Mayor Boris Filatov called to deal with the organized crime groups “Emil” and “Narika” (18+)
Filatov and Korban’s business partners did not sign the petition to return his citizenship
Why did Korban and Filatov spend millions on accomplices of the occupiers?
Subscribe to our channels at Telegram, Facebook, CONT, VK And YandexZen – only dossiers, biographies and incriminating evidence on Ukrainian officials, businessmen, politicians from the section CRYPT!