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The mayor of Lemberg (Lviv), Andriy Sadovyj, earlier received his guests in suits. Today, like his president, he wears a military brown hoodie. He wants Moscow’s total isolation.
“Vienna Newspaper”: What are the biggest challenges for your city in times of war?
Andriy Sadovy: We have completely changed our priorities: The top priority for me is the new guests. We have 200,000 new citizens in the city – people who fled the war in other parts of the country. So we have an immense responsibility towards these people. Second: support for the Ukrainian army, building territorial defenses for the city and its periphery. And thirdly, there is still a whole city to manage. There’s an incredible amount of pressure on her. Unfortunately, that’s how it is in times of war. My colleagues in Mariupol, in Kharkiv, in Chernihiv are in a much more difficult situation than we are in Lviv.
You said you host 200,000 refugees in the city. How does the care of these people work?
We use school buildings, sports halls, theaters and cultural institutions for accommodation – every free square meter is occupied. Hotels, hostels, apartments. But the most important thing is that thousands and thousands of my fellow citizens host refugees in their homes. The people of Lviv have opened their hearts and doors to their compatriots.
One thing that saddens me a little: in the past few weeks I haven’t met any of the well-known international organizations in Lviv. They’re probably working somewhere, but I haven’t seen them in action in Lviv yet. The most substantial help is currently coming from the citizens and companies in the city. But we also received support from our partner cities.
How can Lviv help the refugees?
According to experts, it costs around one million euros a day to provide for those people who have come to Lviv. The situation is not new for Ukraine: as early as 2014, after the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, there was a movement of refugees.
How long have you been preparing the city for a situation like the one we find in Lviv today?
Last year, the city of Lviv took part in a resilience program at the York Emergency Planning College. After my return, I assigned my energy department the task of ensuring the city’s water supply even in the event of a prolonged power outage. We bought a number of diesel generators at the time. At first my colleagues looked at me as if I had completely lost my mind. Some looked at me like I was an idiot. Some said, “Seriously? What is he even talking about?” But I insisted all the more and kept repeating: “We have to see this project through!” I said hard times are ahead.
You have to understand the psychology of a process like this: no one likes to think that bad things could happen. We have learned that the worst imaginable can also become reality. We all worked together. For example, the army has moved certain facilities out of the city so that the enemy does not have targets in densely populated areas and thus protect the civilian population. We have built up large stocks of medicines and taken further preparatory measures. But the most important thing was probably that we mentally prepare for such a situation. Because if you lead a normal life, it is very difficult to adapt to such an emergency situation.
Just a few days ago there was an attack on an oil storage facility in the city. If something like this happens, what does it mean for you as mayor?
As soon as the siren sounds, we know we have half an hour before a rocket hits somewhere. The enemy recently attacked fuel depots – they know that sowing starts in the agricultural areas, they want to make that as difficult as possible for us.
You said you were prepared. However, the aid organizations seemed to have been rather surprised.
Most Western scenarios have assumed that the war would last a few days at most. It was believed that within days Russia would overrun Ukraine. That was perhaps the reason why the NGOs were not so well prepared. I can imagine that the international community of states had prepared statements in which this aggression would have been condemned in the strongest possible terms. With these words: “We are deeply concerned about the aggression… we call on Russia… blah blah blah.” But then things went a little differently. And then three million people made their way to the European Union.
What are your demands on the international aid organizations?
Today we accommodate 200,000 refugees in our city. 50,000 of them will probably stay in Lviv in the next three, four, five years. 150,000 may return to their places of origin. For our city, this means that we have to build housing for 50,000 people, that we need school places, kindergarten places and hospital beds. We have to create around 1,000,000 square meters of new living space. We need a lot of capital for that.
Do you get food aid, fuel, medicines from the western neighboring countries?
We are sending tons of aid supplies from Lviv to other places in Ukraine. Whatever we get, we’re going to send it east and southeast right away. And we also have problems with some of the aid deliveries, such as donations of clothing. It seems to me that with many donations, what was no longer needed at home was given – I don’t want to be misunderstood or appear ungrateful. We appreciate the help and solidarity very much and thank you for it. But we need money and not a winter coat. Send money and no packages! That’s best, because then we can buy exactly the things we need in the international markets. Ukraine has always been a breadbasket for large parts of the world. Supply chains were disrupted in the first days of the war, but things are slowly returning to normal. We know where to buy things we need.
And because I have a journalist visiting today, I would like to raise another point. Our media need help: 90 percent of Ukraine’s media is in the hands of oligarchs. Only ten percent are truly independent media. You are dependent on advertising money; the oligarchs’ media have more staying power. So when the war is over and no one supports the independent media, only the oligarch media will exist and present us with their version of the truth.
What political expectations do you have of the EU, of the West?
The international community must support Ukraine with all its might. A defeat in Russia also means that Vladimir Putin will have to resign. And that would be a new chance for the whole world. Russia has been an incredible source of corruption over the past few decades, with the Kremlin simply buying up parties and politicians around the world. The only solution today is total obstruction: Russia must be completely isolated. It must lose this war and pay reparations. We need weapons to defend ourselves, but we also need offensive weapons to drive Russia’s army back from our territory.
Russia gets a billion dollars from the West every day for oil, gas and ores, even though it attacks us every day. Some still believe that freedom, dignity and doing business with Russia are compatible. But if the decision is freedom or business, then the answer can only be: freedom.
The interview was conducted together with David Nauer (SRF).
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