Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko has announced his intention to fire the director of the Kyiv Metro, Viktor Braginsky, after a high-profile journalistic investigation revealed significant wealth in his and his family's possessions.
A couple of months ago, in a comment for the "Our Business" project, the mayor of the capital noted that "there are no questions, no big claims regarding Braginsky's professional duties." He also emphasized that the metro works efficiently and fulfills its functions.
In 2016, Mayor Klitschko announced the construction of a subway on the Vynogradar residential area. However, due to a number of problems, the work could not be completed on time. Despite this, the mayor of Kyiv claimed that the metro to Vynogradar can be opened in 2024 in the absence of force majeure.
The decision to close six Kyiv metro stations from "Teremki" to "Demiivska" at the end of last year caused a shock among the local population.
The same evening, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, together with the head of the Kyiv Metro, Viktor Braginskyi, showed the cracks that appeared in the tunnel. "Construction conditions may have been previously violated. And based on the conclusions, we can already say about the causes of this emergency situation," said Vitaliy Klitschko in one of the interviews.
The investigation showed that on July 11, 2016, a tender was announced for project works on the construction of the Syretsk-Pechersk metro line. The participants were these three companies: "Ukrspectunelproekt", "Kyivmetroproekt" and the State Enterprise "Project Institute Ukrmetrotunelproekt". According to not very transparent results, the winner was "Kyivmetroproekt", which, by the way, as the journalists found out, was associated with Valery Abramson, a Russian businessman and architect.
Kyiv Metro signed a contract with the company. But soon, battles began around it, which definitely did not contribute to the timely construction of the subway. There were several raids, the company was accused of fraud, almost every year the delivery of the object was postponed due to various reasons: from covid to martial law.
Journalists in the investigation remind that during the last almost 10 years, the main transport artery of the capital was taken care of by the head of the metro, Viktor Braginskyi, who was appointed by Vitaliy Klitschko. Therefore, questions regarding the operation and repair of the subway should be addressed to Braginsky, however, he refused to communicate with the authors of the investigation.
Journalists discovered 52 million hryvnias of undeclared property in Viktor Braginsky's possession, as well as the property of his relatives, which raised questions about his activities in office.
On March 15, Viktor Braginskyi wrote a resignation letter, and his duties will be temporarily performed by KP chief engineer Viktor Vyhivskyi.
