In one corner is Vitali Klitschko, the towering mayor of Kyiv who, when he was a world champion heavyweight boxer, was renowned for his knockout power. In the other is President Zelensky, the diminutive president who has demonstrated remarkable staying power during three years of war with President Putin.
The two men are perhaps Ukraine’s most internationally recognised politicians. But they are now effectively at war after a simmering grudge between them became public. Zelensky has forced Klitschko, who is said to harbour presidential ambitions despite an aborted run in 2014, into a political clinch from which his escape looks improbable. The president has used martial law to appoint a rival military administration in the capital to mirror the mayor’s responsibilities.
Meanwhile, a string of arrests by the national anti-corruption bureau under an operation called Clean City has exposed widespread corruption under Klitschko’s watch. Seven of his subordinates have been arrested, with another three under investigation.
Klitschko, 53, has lashed out at Zelensky’s administration, complaining that the work of his city council had been paralysed by “raids, interrogations and threats of fabricated criminal cases” that prevented his deputies from meeting a legal quorum for decision making. “This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war,” he told The Times in Kyiv. “I said once that it smells of authoritarianism in our country. Now it stinks.”
