By Omer Berberoglu
KYIV (Reuters) -Kyiv mayor and former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko told Reuters on Friday that he believed there were nearly 2 million people still left in the city, which is being squeezed by advancing Russian forces on several fronts.
He said that the Ukrainian capital, normally home to some 3.5 million people, had enough vital supplies to last a couple of weeks, and that supply lines in and out remained open for now.
His brother Wladimir, also a heavyweight boxing star, added in the joint interview that some of the men and women who had accompanied their families to the relative safety of the west of the country were returning to take part in the city’s defence.
“We guess close to 2 million people are still in Kyiv and it’s very important to give services to people,” Vitali told Reuters in the centre of Kyiv.
“We have right now electricity, heating, gas, we have water,” he added, speaking in English.
He thanked countries for sending supplies to Ukraine, and estimated that Kyiv had enough vital goods to last another two weeks, although supply lines did remain open.
Russian forces are already close to Kyiv to the west and northwest, where there has been heavy fighting with Ukrainian troops, and have moved closer to the east and northeast.
Ukrainian officials say that their ultimate aim is to surround the city with a view to seizing it.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled to the relative safety of the west of Ukraine as the fighting neared the outskirts of Kyiv, joining millions of others forced to leave homes behind by sometimes fierce bombardment.
Wladimir Klitschko, who enlisted in Ukraine’s reserve army earlier this month, added that some of the men and women who travelled west with their families were now returning.
“Yes there are a lot of refugees who left west, but a lot are coming back. A lot of men and women … coming back to defend the country. This is our home. We are staying here. We are not leaving anywhere,” he said.
Across Ukraine, thousands of civilians have joined local defence units to support regular troops.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to disarm and “de-Nazify” the country. It denies targeting civilians.
Ukraine and its allies accuse Moscow of an unjustified invasion that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in which hundreds of civilians have been killed and millions more displaced.
(Reporting by Omer Berberoglu;Writing by Mike Collett-White;Editing by Alison Williams)
