The Work of the Kharkiv City Hall During the War
Due to its geographical location only 40 kilometers from the Russian border, Kharkiv met the beginning of the war with fighting on the ring road of the city in the morning of February 24. The prevailing uncertainty of the first days in the city, as well as life in the conditions of constant shelling during all the following days of the war, required determination and efficiency from the city authorities.
In the fourth part of the monitoring of the regional political process during the war, the research focus of the Analytical Center «Observatory of Democracy» is the work of the Kharkiv City Hall. This material focuses on the main actions and statements of Mayor Igor Terekhov, as well as the gradual return of politics as a specific space for the public competition of ideas in Kharkiv.
Symbolic policy of the Kharkiv City Hall: the choice in favor of Ukraine and step-by-step de-Russification
On February 24, at 11:00 am, Mayor of Kharkiv Ihor Terekhov recorded a 30-second appeal to the city residents to stay at home. These were the first public words of the Mayor after the start of the full-scale war. The Mayor avoided any evaluative judgments, categories such as “war”, “Russians”, “Ukrainians” – single-rooted variations on “Kharkiv” sounded from the toponyms only 4 times and he also noted that “hard times have come.”