Concern among Ukrainian civilians for their safety rose on Saturday after authorities admitted an inspection had found nearly a quarter of the country’s bomb shelters closed or unusable, just days after a woman was killed in Kiev. waiting outside a sealed shelter during a Russian missile attack.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported on Saturday through its press service that of the “more than 4,800” shelters it had inspected, 252 were closed and another 893 were “unfit for use.”
The Kiev regional prosecutor’s office also reported on Saturday that four people were detained as part of a criminal investigation into the death of the 33-year-old woman on Thursday outside a closed shelter. The prosecution said a security guard who had failed to unlock the doors remained in custody, while three other people, including a local official, were under house arrest.
According to the prosecution, the suspects face up to eight years in prison for an act of negligence that led to the death of a person.
The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, also reported this Saturday that the city authorities have received “more than a thousand” complaints about closed, dilapidated or insufficient air-raid shelters a day after the launch of an online comment service. .
In a message via the Telegram app, Klitschko reported that “almost half” of the complaints were about the facilities being closed, while about a quarter were about being in poor condition. Some 250 kyiv residents wrote to complain about the lack of nearby shelters.
The Interior Ministry said more than 5,300 volunteers, including emergency workers, police officers and local officials, would continue to inspect shelters across Ukraine.
Russia launched a missile attack on the Ukrainian capital early Thursday, killing a 9-year-old girl, her mother and another woman, in the highest death toll from a single operation against Kiev in the past month. . A 33-year-old woman died while she and others waited to enter a closed shelter, leaving the group at the mercy of falling missile fragments, her husband told Ukrainian media.
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