Dnipro mayor Filatov urges central government to ‘call off their dogs,’ political expert weighs in

Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov took to Facebook to appeal to “leaders, political leaders, ministers, and security officials” to “call off their dogs until the end of the war,” prompting political expert Ihor Reiterovych to characterize it as a desperate cry, reflecting the need for expedited, pragmatic solutions, in his interview with Radio NV on Feb. 13.

“All those who install surveillance cameras outside the gates of communal enterprises, search for ‘RAM,’ mistreat people, fabricate criminal cases, earn likes, shoulder marks, titles, and awards,” wrote Filatov.

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People capable of resolving issues after a Russian missile or a drone strike, is either under night home detention or without protection from recruitment officers, Filatov said.

Reiterovych noted that it was not the first time Filatov had written such post.

“This is a cry of despair,” Reiterovych said.

“During the severe airstrikes in Dnipro, I recall a significant incident: a substantial number of windows in houses were shattered. To address this, people resorted to collecting glass from various sources to makeshiftly cover the broken windows. This was done solely based on their word of honor.”

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“He (Filatov) warned at the time that ‘you must understand that there are certain force majeure circumstances that will not always correspond to the existing procedure.’ As far as I know, this story still ended badly because law enforcements started asking questions. Like ‘Why did you do this? Why didn’t you wait for two weeks, didn’t do everything according to the procedure?’”

“This was in the winter, when it was necessary to quickly solve the problem, to somehow provide people in the houses with heat.”

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“This is not just about Dnipro; it is about the whole country, of all the cities that are facing this, saying that wartime requires different solutions. Local authorities have to be more efficient. Sometimes the procedure has to be simplified.”

“Doing in additional checks or apprehending someone for taking action without a formal signature for faster problem-solving is evidently not a viable option.”

“I would like to believe that the authorities will finally heed such statements and, indeed, cease their current actions. Politically, it is convenient on one hand, realizing there is nowhere else to turn; local government representatives resort to such measures to address immediate issues. Others gather compromising material to present in folders, saying, ‘so here you have this, this, and this. How are we going to solve it?’’

“This is indeed a very troubling situation. It will result in local government representatives either ceasing their intended actions or resigning from their positions, questioning, ‘Why should we engage in this, if every effort is likely to be interpreted negatively?’”

“Or it will lead to a very harsh conflict over a specific situation or the events unfolding in the country at large, between local governments and the law enforcement agencies of the central government. We already have, to put it mildly, not very good relations between them lately. Creating additional reasons for conflicts is evidently a detrimental policy.”

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine