Blocking Kyiv's resilience plan for six months, the central authorities have now turned to Kyiv's public transport – Klitschko

Before proposing the idea of free rides in Kyiv and replacing the subway with buses, the central authorities should have anticipated money for this and calculated the required number of vehicles and people. They have already “dealt with” the resilience plan, blocking it for almost half a year, and now they have turned to public transport.

As KB has learned, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko commented on the president's proposals for transportation connections in the capital.

“Regarding the new idea of the central authorities for Kyiv’s improvement. I mean the ‘free’ travel. The president instructed the prime minister and to present a program for such travel (and thus, to find money for it?), and to find a reserve of buses. Let me start with the reserve. Kyiv has buses to add. There are no drivers! Maybe they, like electricians, can be recruited by the police? And about funds for the ‘free’ travel. Perhaps the government should first repay Kyiv the subsidy for free transportation for pensioners for 11 years? And that already exceeds 8 billion hryvnias. In short, with Kyiv’s resilience plan, the central authorities figured it out, successfully blocking it for half a year. Now they have turned to public transport,” wrote Vitali Klitschko.

The Kyiv mayor noted that after the suspension of electric transport, the number of bus routes has already increased to 129, and the number of buses to 418, on which 685 drivers work. But to completely replace the subway, the city needs 1020 buses.

“Currently, Kyivpastrans JSC has the opportunity to increase the number of buses by another 25 units (technically serviceable and ready to go on the line). For this, at least 50 drivers of category D must be additionally engaged. In addition to that, after a defined limit, the enterprise cannot book new drivers,” the capital’s mayor said.

Klitschko also reminded that to date Kyiv’s public transport already carries more than 1 million passengers free of charge, whose benefits the state is supposed to provide.

As a reminder, yesterday President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed the government to prepare a free travel program in Kyiv’s urban ground transport and sufficient reserve of buses.

Note that Kyiv’s resilience plan was presented by Vitali Klitschko at an RNBO meeting on 3 March. This document was approved after five months – 5 August 2026 of the year. At the same time, the cost estimate was reduced almost twofold—from 67 billion hryvnias to 37 billion hryvnias.