Conflict in Kyiv City Council: Opposition demands Bondarenko’s resignation, Klychko tries to postpone the vote

Conflict in Kyiv City Council: Opposition demands Bondarenko’s resignation, Klychko tries to postpone the vote

The Kyiv City Council meeting on April 3, 2025, began with a conflict. The opposition faction "Servant of the People" (which is in the minority in the city council) bluntly raised the issue of no confidence and the resignation of the secretary, Volodymyr Bondarenko.

However, Vitaliy Klychko, who presided over the meeting, attempted to postpone this item on the agenda in order to maintain influence over the Kyiv City Council and control its agenda. Uproar and chaos ensued in the session hall—deputies argued at length about the regulations, and it even came down to seizing the microphone from Klychko himself.

How Bondarenko was "taken down" in the Kyiv City Council chamber

The political crisis in Kyiv’s government is escalating. Without a secretary of the Kyiv City Council, the mayor, Vitaliy Klychko, opened the meeting and closed the previous session—a strategic maneuver can be seen here: by "mechanically" transferring the agenda from one session to another, some important issues, such as the vote on the secretary’s resignation, can be "lost." This point is crucial for Klychko: the figure of his deputy/secretary is too important to allow the opposition to "take it down."

The announcement of no confidence in Bondarenko was made by the leader of the "SN" faction in the Kyiv City Council, Andriy Vitrenko, from the podium, presenting the 40 signatures of deputies he collected under the document. He immediately threatened that if the document was not considered, the faction "reserves the right" to block the podium. This is an effective tool to "take down" Klychko’s appointee, but the mayor had his own plan.

"Regarding the question of the necessity of voting, I would like to point out—the list of issues included on the agenda without voting is clearly defined by the regulations. This issue is absent from it, and therefore, it is included in the general order (read—as later on—Ed.)," Klychko read from the podium in a stern tone, looking directly into the eyes of Andriy Vitrenko, who was standing near the podium with his faction.

However, he took the document with the signatures from Vitrenko and handed it over without looking to an employee of the Kyiv City Council apparatus sitting nearby—for registration. Then the commotion began: Klychko announced the beginning of proposals from deputies, and a small crowd from "Servants of the People" instantly gathered behind him. The most active of them—Liliya Pashynna and Kseniya Semenova—demanded an urgent consideration of Bondarenko’s resignation.

"I’m announcing the first issue that we discussed..." the mayor strained to say. "No! The first issue is the secretary! This is a demand, and it is urgent!" insisted Pashynna behind him. "The first. Issue. About. Amendments. To. Conduct..." Klychko literally "typed" each word, but at that moment Liliya Pashynna grabbed his personal block with microphones and lifted it, attempting to stop him. A sinister silence fell.

"Witness status": what Klychko himself thinks about the Kyiv City Council secretary

Klychko was trying to be convinced that the issue of the city council secretary’s resignation did not require a separate vote on its "inclusion" itself. They argued it needed to be put on—immediately, and secretly (so it wasn’t visible who among the factions and how many votes were given for expressing no confidence and resignation). When passions ran high and a scuffle broke out, the "Servants" requested a break for a short Coordination Council meeting—and Klychko slipped away from the presidency with relief. Eventually, they agreed to convene another, extraordinary, session of the Kyiv City Council—on Tuesday, April 8.

A notable and important nuance. At noon on April 3, Vitaliy Klychko himself published a post on Telegram reminding that several figures in the "Komarnytskyi case" and Bihus.info investigation had already been dismissed from positions in the Kyiv City State Administration (this refers to Klychko’s deputy Petro Olenych, former official of "Kyiv Improvement" Oleksiy Mushta, "Special Housing Fund" Yuriy Leonov, whom he had previously reported about). There was no sensation—dozens of other figures in the high-profile case remain in their positions: chief architect of Kyiv Oleksandr Svystunov, director of the Department of Transport Infrastructure Ruslan Kandybor, deputy director of the "Engineering Center" ME Yaroslava Fedoruk, head of "Kyiv Master Plan" Dmytro Lykov, and others.

It is clear that the demands of opposition deputies have now gone further: from the mayor, they are demanding the "surrender" of the suspended Kyiv City Council secretary Volodymyr Bondarenko. Consequently, Klychko himself had to respond to this issue—understanding this, he had prepared his own public reaction to this demand ahead of the meeting.

"Regarding other officials... They have an undefined procedural status in the criminal proceedings. And Volodymyr Bondarenko has the status of a witness. He, as the secretary of the Kyiv City Council, was elected by the deputies. They can remove him... For now, he is suspended, I will prepare and conduct the meetings as the mayor," Klychko added in a subsequent post.