Sienkevych calls for shelters in Mykolaiv to be kept open
- Катерина Сеременко
The Mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, has instructed officials to ensure that shelters in the city remain open to the public during air raid alerts.
He made this statement during a staff meeting on Monday, 15 June, according to NikVesti.
He raised this issue with the City Council’s Emergency Situations Department and the organisations responsible for managing the city’s shelters.
«I ask you to check that they are open. As you can see, drones are flying over us almost every night. We have people trying to get into the shelters — they must all be open. Everyone is exhausted; everyone is on edge. So any slip-up could turn into a scandal. These are the times we’re living in. That’s why every department and division must understand that a bomb shelter must serve as a bomb shelter, not just be a nice, refurbished building locked away,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.
Read also: «Why do people in Mykolaiv not use the shelters: a survey by NikVesti».
What is the situation with shelters in Mykolaiv?
Mykolaiv is short of more than two thousand shelters, and this problem is most acute in the Lisky, Namyv and Pivnichnyi neighbourhoods. It is there that the city authorities plan to install mobile shelters, as there are virtually no permanent shelters in these areas. At the same time, Mykolaiv is counting on state support to develop its network of shelters.
During shelling, Mykolaiv residents are unable to access departmental shelters outside working hours. Residents of the city contacted the editorial office of NikVesti, reporting that during an air-raid alert they were unable to reach the shelter at 173 Tsentralnyi Avenue. All other nearby shelters also belong to institutions or enterprises managed by municipal or private organisations, and only admit people during working hours. Mykolaiv City Council has promised to raise the issue of shelter accessibility for discussion at a meeting of the executive committee.
Only 7 per cent of Mykolaiv’s shelters are open. At the same time, there is a problem with the accessibility of shelters — there are no ramps or gentle slopes. In April 2024, residents of Mykolaiv were unable to access a shelter on the grounds of the «Kazka» children’s village during an air raid alert because it was closed. The administration of the children’s village conducted an internal investigation into this incident.
This is not the first instance of shelters in Mykolaiv being closed during an air raid alert. Shelters in the Matviivka neighbourhood, in the city’s Central District and in Yunist Park were also found to be locked during the attacks on Mykolaiv on 17 March. Following these incidents, Mykolaiv’s mayor, Oleksandr Sшenkevych, urged residents to call the police if a shelter or bomb shelter was found to be locked during an air raid alert.
Overall, Mykolaiv found itself on the list of regions with the worst condition of shelters. Following an inspection of shelters across Ukraine, the National Security and Defence Council deemed the preparedness of shelters for use to be unsatisfactory in a number of regions and cities, including Mykolaiv. Following this, the mayor dismissed Oleksandr Herasymenia, head of the Department for Emergency Situations and Civil Protection. The first deputy mayor, Vitalii Lukov, received a reprimand.
The head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Vitalii Kim, clarified that 69 per cent of the region’s neglected shelters are located in Mykolaiv itself.At the same time, almost half of the city’s residents (47 per cent) rated the condition of the city’s air-raid shelters as appalling or poor.
Back in May 2023, over 70 million hryvnias were allocated from Mykolaiv’s budget for the repair and equipping of shelters. However, it transpired that the city budget would not receive any of the 102 million hryvnias that the state had allocated for the repair of shelters in schools and nurseries across the region. And at the end of August 2023, the head of the Regional State Administration, Vitalii Kim, stated that he was dissatisfied with the shelters in the region’s schools.
Hanna Lychko, head of the Education Department at Mykolaiv City Council, reported that shelters in 21 schools in the city are currently being repaired, with a further nine at the planning stage. At the same time, the city council announced that by the end of 2023, the Department of Housing and Communal Services planned to repair 18 basic shelters.
In October 2023, NikVesti reported that the Department of Architecture of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration had, over the course of a month, concluded 27 direct contracts for the development of designand cost estimates, as well as for the major refurbishment of public sector facilities, with the firm «Architectural Bureau – Wave 89» LLC, which has been in existence for less than six months and is owned by a member of the regional public council on reconstruction. The Mykolaiv Regional State Administration later explained that direct contracts with this firm for the design of shelters had enabled budget savings.
Read the article by NikVesti entitled «Repairs at the end of the year: who secured contracts for shelters in Mykolaiv without a tender».
In August 2024, the government allocated around 5 billion hryvnias from the budget for shelters in schools across eight regions, including the Mykolaiv region.
See also the article by NikVesti entitled «Either two walls, or go ouyside». Why have the authorities in Pivdennoukrainsk failed to build a single shelter for the community in over two years of war?»
It should be noted that the Mykolaiv region was among the top five regions that, in 2024, demonstrated the best performance in terms of expanding and preparing shelters.