Ukraine will be inspecting civilian bomb shelters across the country after three people died in Kyiv earlier this week when they were unable to access a shelter during a Russian missile barrage.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deaths have caused an “obviously strong reaction” and orders are in place to check shelters in the capital and elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, even today, after all this, Kyiv residents are still publishing information about the inaccessibility of shelters,” Zelesnksy said. “Not just about closed shelters, but about welded entrances to shelters, about the absence of shelters in some parts of the city. This level of negligence in the city cannot be justified by any excuses.”
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said he’d been instructed to commence nationwide inspections and that the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and the National Police are already working.
“Any violations found must be properly recorded, and those responsible must be brought to justice,” he said on Facebook.
The numbers: After a month of regular night-time Russian attacks on Kyiv, the city’s authorities have disclosed that 92,000 people used the city’s metro stations as shelters in May. They said that 46 underground stations operate as shelters around the clock.