There Is Money but No One Responsible: Why Kyiv Can’t Provide Shelters for Residents

Currently security questions in the capital are divided among several centers of power.

The Kyiv City Administration, under martial law conditions, is effectively split into several decision-making centers, and responsibility for civilian protection and the condition of the city’s shelters is distributed among the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA), the Kyiv City Military Administration and district state administrations. At the same time, the heads of the KCSA and the city’s district administrations are appointed by the president, and the mayor’s ability to influence the district vertical is significantly limited. Thus, responsibility for the safety of Kyiv residents is also shared among several levels of government, complicating the determination of who is ultimately responsible for the result, writes in the material “Who will build shelters — and who is responsible for the safety of Kyiv residents?” Alexander Sergiyenko, director of the Institute of the City.

An expert analyzed the distribution of powers and responsibility for Kyiv’s shelter system and noted that since January 2022, the appointments of heads of Kyiv’s district state administrations are submitted by the government and approved directly by the president. As a result, city authorities fund a large part of programs related to shelters, while direct customers of many works are district administrations, whose heads the mayor does not appoint.

Against the backdrop of such a dispersed system, in 2025, Kyiv’s district administrations did not use about 500 million hryvnias allocated for stationary shelters, and after redirecting these funds they did not implement another program for providing the city with mobile shelters.

According to official data from the Kyiv City State Administration, 4368 shelters of the capital’s shelter fund are designed for 2 182 467 people, which is about 59% of Kyiv’s estimated population. At the same time, provision by district differs significantly: in the Podilskyi district shelters can accommodate about 82% of residents, while in Desnianskyi — only 39%.

Another power center during the war is the Kyiv City Military Administration. Its head is also appointed by the president. It should coordinate security and civil protection issues for the city. However, at the time of preparing the material, the editorial office did not receive a response from the Kyiv City State Administration that would allow assessing what exactly the military administration did to address the shelter situation and how it reacted to the non-fulfillment of district programs.

At the same time, there are questions for the Kyiv City State Administration as well — how exactly did the city authorities react when it became clear that districts were not using allocated funds and not carrying out planned measures, and did they employ all available control mechanisms.

The Department of Municipal Security of the KCSA, in response to ZN.UA, stated that the questions posed by the editors exceed its powers, so the editors did not receive answers about the KCSA’s actions after the districts failed to implement programs.

Also at the time of preparing the material, questions to ZN.UA about the responsibility of the heads of the district administrations and possible personnel decisions, and to the Office of the President, the KCSA, the Cabinet of Ministers and part of the district administrations were not answered by the editors, as expected.

At the same time, as Sergiyenko emphasizes, problems did not end in 2025 year. As of the beginning of July 2026, Kyiv funded 16,3% of this year’s expenditure for the construction of multi-purpose shelters and 7,6% for the major repairs of the simplest shelters.

These indicators themselves do not show at what exact stage delays occur — financing, design, procurement or execution — but they demonstrate the pace of program implementation against the backdrop of ongoing Russian attacks.

At the same time, the expert emphasizes that when ballistic and other rapid threats are announced, the time between a warning signal and the impact can be minimal. Therefore Kyiv needs a civil protection system in which shelters are located within several minutes’ reach, are constantly open and ready for use, and for each level of management and for each facility there is a clearly designated responsible person.