"We will cut the doors": Mayor Senkevich urged Mykolaiv residents not to lock the shelter doors.

“We will cut off the doors”: Mayor Senkevich urged Mykolaiv residents not to lock the shelter doors

The Mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevich, warned residents of apartment buildings that the shelters located in basement areas, which are being arranged by the municipal enterprise, are publicly accessible and should not be locked.

He made this statement during his interview on the program "Novini Pryazov’ya."

According to the mayor, municipal services are setting up the simplest shelters in the basements of apartment buildings, where residents, their neighbors, and any Mykolaiv citizens nearby can take cover during air raid alerts. The number of such shelters is increasing, but they are not sufficient for all city residents.

- In some buildings where it is possible to create the simplest shelters, we are also working to increase the number of these shelters. One could say that they are inadequate. However, there is another problem – we lack resources, meaning funds, to create these shelters. Because this is a significant amount of money, and this process cannot be completed in a year or two, not even in ten years, to provide all half a million residents with these shelters. But the process is ongoing and is being monitored by all possible services. I am not ready to say how many there are now, but we are constantly building them. We will launch a few more before the New Year,” said Oleksandr Senkevich.

He also noted that some residents of apartment buildings perceive the improvement of shelters in their building's basement as a renovation of the basement and lock the area to prevent outsiders from entering. The mayor emphasized that the shelter must be publicly accessible and should not be locked.

- I must remind once again that the shelters we create in buildings or structures are not the property of the co-owners of the buildings. It often happens that we carry out renovations in the simplest shelters, creating all conditions for them to serve as shelters. And the residents of that building think: “Oh, they renovated the basement for us, that’s it, we lock it up.” No, they must remain open. We constantly publish the phone numbers of responsible persons. And the simple warning is – anyone who locks them will find us cutting off the locks. If new ones are put on – we will cut off the doors. This is not about aesthetics in the basement; it’s about the safety of people. We understand that everyone wants it to be safe, to prevent theft or damage. However, first and foremost, we carry out these renovations to protect people – all people nearby, not just those residents who consider this shelter their own,” the mayor explained.