来点左媒的旧闻，POLITICO:第聂伯罗市态度强硬的市长如何让他的城市调整至战争动员状态

乌克兰第聂伯罗——这些天几乎所有东西都在经过这个中南部的城市：西方武器通过这里被紧急送到前线，从基辅来的增援部队通过这里支持乌克兰部队，同时也在为绝望的平民提供人道主义援助。

确保这一切顺利进行的关键官员之一是第聂伯罗市长Borys Filatov——一个说话强硬、烟不离扣、强壮结实的男人，有着喜剧天赋和冒险精神。（他自豪地拥有一张价值20万美元的乘坐维珍银河亚轨道太空飞行的机票。） 菲拉托夫可能有俄罗斯血统，母语也是俄语，但这位50岁的前律师和企业家管理着一个长期以来与莫斯科关系密切的城市。他坚称自己和城里的其他人一样是乌克兰人，并为压制弗拉基米尔·普京的帝国主义议程尽了自己的一份力量。 周三，当空袭警报响彻全市时，他在戒备森严的河滨办公室接受采访，那里之前是他的旧法律事务所，他说：“一切都经过我们。” 空袭警报表明，一枚俄罗斯导弹已进入乌克兰领空，警告该市数百万居民寻找掩体躲避。第聂伯罗离前线足够远，到目前为止，它避免了俄罗斯地面部队和炮兵系统的袭击，这些袭击摧毁了首都基辅周围地区以及主要城市哈尔科夫、切尔尼戈夫和尼古拉耶夫。 但从2月24日普京开始入侵的最初时刻以来，俄罗斯的远程导弹就开始袭击了第聂伯罗，因为第聂伯罗是通往陷入困境的东部的主要门户。

Filatov认为，正是第聂伯罗在乌克兰国防中发挥着越来越关键的作用，以及这座城市由“大型工业工厂和高度聪明的人，即大量负责任和爱国的公民”组成，使其成为“普京非常关注的热点地区”。

为了强调这一点，菲拉托夫补充到，“俄罗斯所有导弹的10%是直接向第聂伯罗州的领土发射的”，第聂伯罗市是第聂伯罗是第聂伯罗州的首府。 他以军事秘密为由拒绝透露空袭导弹的确切数量。但沃洛迪米尔·泽伦斯基总统本月表示，自入侵开始以来，俄罗斯已经向乌克兰发射了3000多枚导弹。

从这个数字计算，俄罗斯已经对第聂伯罗和第聂伯罗州已经发射了300多枚导弹。Filatov说，其中的90%袭击了私人财产和民用基础设施，这些袭击在很大程度上与乌克兰军事目标或西方武器转让运输无关。

作为证明，他引用了俄罗斯的一次袭击，摧毁了一个空的燃料罐和一个汽车服务站。

“我不明白为什么他们对一个普通的旧汽车服务站发射了几枚价值100万美元的导弹。但显然，俄罗斯宣传称，那里的汽车站是为亚速营搞修理的。”——一支志愿战斗部队，由极右翼民族主义者在加入国民警卫队之前于2014年组建，今年在马里乌波尔的亚速尔工厂保卫到了痛苦的最后。“这简直太荒谬了。” 他补充说：“我不知道是他们的情报收集是否工作的不正常，或者是他们仅仅是蠢得要命。”

但他得出了一个结论：“这只是纯粹的施加恐怖。这是恐吓，让人民士气低落，使他们向政府施加压力。”

事实上，过去一个月俄罗斯导弹袭击的目标包括购物中心、娱乐中心和住宅楼，他们杀害了数十名平民，包括妇女和儿童。

Filatov说，上周，俄罗斯在第聂伯罗发生的导弹袭击袭击了Yuzhmash机械制造厂和Yuzhnoye设计院院区的一部分，以及厂院前的公共广场，造成两名平民死亡，多人受伤。 Yuzhmash和Yuzhnoye是苏联洲际弹道导弹制造的核心，自1991年独立以来一直为乌克兰的国防和太空利益服务，它们似乎是俄国人的目标。但像许多俄罗斯的袭击一样，这些空袭打偏了。 菲拉托夫坐在蓝黄色的乌克兰国旗和第聂伯罗城市旗帜旁边，办公室还装饰着哥萨克军刀和箭，讲述了他是如何经历入侵的最初时刻的，并将第聂伯罗调整到战争动员的状态上的。 2月23日，当他在避暑别墅时，他接到军事情报官员的电话，警告他俄罗斯将在24日凌晨入侵。

“他们说，看起来俄罗斯人会袭击我们，”他说，并补充说，官员们已经拦截了俄罗斯军队讨论他们刚刚下达的命令的无线电传输。

他说，这让他措手不及，因为几周来，泽伦斯基一直在淡化入侵的威胁。

他说：“不幸的是，尽管我们的西方合作伙伴和拜登总统本人发出了警告，但政府还是让每个人都放心了。”“我们被告知，我们将在5月份安心的煎烤肉串。” 菲拉托夫说，他已经认真对待警告，由于2014年克里米亚被夺取，他在2月24日前开始了入侵的准备工作。

“我们向关键基础设施发送了明确的指示......我召集了我的专家，说如果互联网或电话通信被切断，我们将如何保持联系？”他说。他还与民族主义民兵领导人德米特里·亚罗什一起组织了一支快速反应志愿者部队，“在发生敌对行动时”聚集到市长办公室。

他说：“凌晨4点左右，30名武装人员开始抵达。”

大约在同一时间，他读到一名在基辅的乌克兰记者的帖子，称首都听到了爆炸声。

“三分钟后，”他说，“我听到自己左边的爆炸声——在一个军事设施——和右边第聂伯罗机场的爆炸声。”

该市至少被四枚导弹击中。

菲拉托夫说：“我可以看到袭击引发的火焰的光芒。”“我拿起我的东西去上班了。”

工作包括与第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克地区当局协调，在该地区，特别是第聂伯罗尔市周围建立检查站，动员由他的长期盟友、商业领袖和政治家Hennadiy Korban领导的领土国防军，并在城市的边缘挖战壕。

最终，当俄罗斯对基辅的闪电战失败，普京命令军队重新集中和巩固顿巴斯东部地区的努力时，他的主要任务将是确保向顿巴斯的乌克兰部队顺利运送关键物资，并加强第聂伯罗的防御。

菲拉托夫拒绝透露可能流经该地区（面积约为马里兰州）的西方武器的细节。但他承认，他的城市和该州对于确保这些武器运往前线至关重要。

菲拉托夫说：“我们正在全面处理国防问题。”“我们购买无人机、皮卡、制服、肉罐头、对讲机，以及士兵们需要的一切。我们正在世界各地寻找这些东西。这是建立一个物流体系和防御体系。”

他说，他获得了美国城市的安保支持，包括芝加哥和费城。他正在与大阪和科隆建立伙伴关系。这些城市和其他城市一起提供或承诺提供或承诺提供约30辆救护车和其他关键设备和必需品。 菲拉托夫开着一辆装甲SUV，带着一群面带微笑的保镖在城里走来走去，就迅速建立了如此有效的防御和后勤网络，其实这也不足为奇。

2014年，Filatov在他的前商业伙伴Ihor Kolomoisky手下担任第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克州副州长，Ihor Kolomoisky于2014年被任命为面临俄罗斯领导的分离主义叛乱风险的乌克兰地区有影响力的寡头的实验的一部分。菲拉托夫的工作是镇压任何亲俄罗斯的分裂主义情绪和团体。作为其中的一部分，他和科洛莫伊斯基亲自资助了几个志愿营，并为缴获的武器和抓捕俄罗斯和亲俄特工提供了奖励。赏金包括1，000美元给机枪，1500美元给重型机枪，2,000美元给手榴弹发射器，10,000美元奖赏抓捕俄罗斯特工。

俄罗斯军队从未占领第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克的领土，部分原因是他们的努力，但也因为乌克兰志愿者战士的决心。

此后，Filatov与Kolomoisky闹翻了，Kolomoisky拥有1+1电视频道，该频道播出了Zelensskyy的热门喜剧系列《人民的仆人》，这使他一举成名。据报道，上周，Zelenskyy吊销了Kolomoiskiy的乌克兰护照，Kolomoiskiy也拥有塞浦路斯和以色列公民身份。

菲拉托夫对科洛莫伊斯基被吊销护照并不感到烦恼，。据报道，泽连斯基还剥夺了第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克省领土国防军首脑科尔班的乌克兰公民身份，这让他感到愤怒。

Korban本周在Facebook上发布消息称，边防警卫禁止他在出国旅行后重新进入乌克兰。

“我希望这仍然只是一个悲剧性的错误。我真的不希望中央政府利用我国正在发生战争的事实，比如说，创造一个专制国家，”Filatov罕见的在战时批评Zelenskyy，当Zelenskyy已经赢得了全世界数百万人的心的时候。

乌克兰政客们非正式地同意团结在国旗下，搁置分歧和不满，团结一致地与俄罗斯作战。

菲拉托夫说：“战争没有赋予篡夺权力的权利。”“我们不需要一个新的普京。”

斗胆介绍下背景锐评一下:首先前段时间寂寞的人揭发总统那边搞了个名单剥夺10多个人的乌克兰国籍，其中大部分都是名不见经传的罪犯，但有三个人比较特殊，逃到以色列的反对平台档的二把手也是个寡头，科洛莫伊斯基，科尔宾。菲拉托夫现在是迈丹群体中较为民族注意的那一环的带头大哥，当年是菲拉托夫和科尔宾把科洛莫伊斯基开除出民族注意右翼的。按照阿列斯托维奇的说法是菲拉托夫和拉基茨基（前亚速团营长创始人）给美国议员告了总统办公室主任叶尔马克的黑状。所以这一波乌克兰人都觉得是叶尔马克的报复，现在看来前段时间菠萝不能出境可能也和叶尔马克有关。前段时间我们的总司令扎胖和总统那边的矛盾可能也不能算空穴来风，扎胖之前让犹区的创始人亚罗什当自己的顾问，乌军的基层已经完成了迈丹化民族注意化。最后迈丹另外一极民族自由派的态度挺有意思，菠萝在最新表态里呼吁团结，有空翻译一下。

原文:How Dnipro’s tough-talking mayor keeps his city on a war footing. Borys Filatov also criticized President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for first downplaying Russia’s invasion and then sidelining his region’s head of Territorial Defense Forces. By CHRISTOPHER MILLER

07/29/2022 06:58 PM EDT

DNIPRO, Ukraine — Just about everything these days passes through this south-central city: Western arms being rushed to the front, reinforcements from Kyiv to shore up Ukraine forces and humanitarian aid for desperate civilians.

And one of the key officials making sure it all runs smoothly is Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov — a tough-talking, chain-smoking, brawny man with a flair for the dramatic and hunger for adventure. (He’s the proud owner of a $200,000 ticket to ride on one of Virgin Galactic’s suborbital space flights.) Filatov may have Russian blood and speak Russian as his first language, but the 50-year-old former lawyer and entrepreneur who looks over a city that has long had close ties to Moscow insists he’s as Ukrainian as anyone and doing his part to quash Vladimir Putin’s imperialist agenda.

“Everything goes through us,” he told POLITICO in an interview Wednesday inside the heavily guarded riverfront office of his old law practice as air raid sirens wailed across the city.

The sirens indicate that a Russian missile has entered Ukrainian airspace, warning the city’s million residents to take cover. Dnipro is far enough back from the frontlines that it has so far avoided attacks from Russian ground forces and the artillery systems that have devastated areas around the capital, Kyiv, and major cities Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mykolaiv.

But Russian long-range missiles have pounded Dnipro, which serves as the main gateway to the embattled east, since the first moments of Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion.

Filatov believes it’s the increasingly critical role that Dnipro plays in Ukraine’s defense, as well as the fact that the city is composed of “big industrial factories and highly intelligent people, that is, a large number of responsible and patriotic citizens,” that has made it “a very serious interest of Putin’s.”

Underscoring that point, Filatov said that “10 percent of all Russian missiles have been fired directly at the territory of Dnipropetrovsk region,” of which Dnipro is the capital.

He declined to disclose the exact number of missiles, citing military secrecy. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this month that Russia had fired more than 3,000 of them at Ukraine since the invasion began.

That figure and attacks on Dnipro and Dnipropetrovsk since then mean more than 300 missiles have been lobbed here. Of those, Filatov said, 90 percent have struck private property and civilian infrastructure that largely has nothing to do with the Ukrainian military or Western weapons transfers. As proof, he cited Russian attacks that destroyed an empty fuel container and a car service station.

“I don’t understand why they fire several $1 million missiles at a regular old car service station. But apparently, Russian propaganda said that cars were repaired there for the Azov battalion” — a volunteer fighting unit that was formed in 2014 by far-right nationalists before it was brought into the National Guard and this year defended Mariupol’s Azovstal plant to the bitter end. “This is simply ridiculous.”

“I didn’t know whether their intelligence gathering is not working correctly or if this is some kind of general stupidity,” he added.

But he’s come to a conclusion: “This is simply terror. This is intimidation, the demoralization of the population so that they put pressure on the government.”

Indeed, the targets of Russia’s missile attacks over the past month have included shopping malls, entertainment centers and residential buildings, and they have killed scores of civilians, including women and children.

A Russian missile attack in Dnipro last week struck part of the Yuzhmash Machine Building Plant and Yuzhnoye Design Bureau campus, and the public square in front of it, killing two civilians and wounding many more, Filatov said.

Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye — which were central to the manufacturing of the Soviets’ intercontinental ballistic missiles and have served Ukraine’s defense and space interests since independence in 1991 — appear to have been the target. But like many of Russia’s strikes, these ones missed. Seated beside the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag and the Dnipro city flag, decorated with a Cossack saber and arrow, Filatov recounted how he experienced the first moments of the invasion and put Dnipro on a war footing.

He was at his summer house on Feb. 23 when he got a call from military intelligence officials warning him that Russia would invade in the early hours of the 24th.

“They said it looks like the Russians will come for us,” he said, adding that the officials had intercepted radio transmissions of Russian forces discussing their orders that had just come down.

It caught him off guard because Zelenskyy had for weeks, he said, been downplaying the threat of an invasion.

“Unfortunately, the government, despite the warnings of our Western partners and President [Joe] Biden personally, reassured everyone,” he said. “We were told that we would be frying kebabs in May.” Filatov said he had taken the warnings seriously and because of the 2014 seizure of Crimea had set preparations for the invasion in motion before Feb. 24.

“We sent clear instructions to critical infrastructure facilities … and I gathered my specialists and said that if the internet or telephone communication is cut off, how will we meet?” he said. He also organized a quick-reaction volunteer force with nationalist militia leader Dmitry Yarosh to gather at the mayor’s office “in the event of hostilities.”

“Around 4 a.m., 30 armed people began to arrive,” he said.

Around the same time, he read a post by a Ukrainian journalist in Kyiv that said explosions had been heard in the capital.

“Three minutes later,” he said, “I heard explosions to my left — at a military installation — and to my right — at the Dnipro airport.”

The city had been hit with at least four missiles.

“I could see the glow of the fires burning from attacks,” Filatov said. “I grabbed my things and went to work.”

That included coordinating with Dnipropetrovsk regional authorities to erect checkpoints around the region and especially Dnipro city, mobilize the Territorial Defense Forces, which are headed by his longtime ally, the business leader and politician Hennadiy Korban, and dig trenches around the city’s fringes.

Eventually, when Russia’s blitzkrieg on Kyiv failed and Putin ordered troops to refocus and consolidate efforts on the eastern Donbas region, the main tasks would be to ensure the smooth passage of critical supplies to Ukrainian forces there and to shore up Dnipro’s defenses.

Filatov declined to give specifics about Western weapons that may be flowing through the region, which is about the size of Maryland. But he acknowledged that his city and the greater province have been crucial for ensuring they get to the front.

“We are dealing entirely with defense issues,” Filatov said. “We buy drones, pickup trucks, uniforms, canned meat, walkie-talkies, everything the soldiers need. We are looking all around the world for these things. It’s a logistics system and a fortification system.”

He has secured support from American cities, he said, including Chicago and Philadelphia. And he’s forging partnerships with Osaka and Cologne. Together, these cities and others have provided or promised around 30 ambulances and other crucial equipment and necessities.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Filatov, who moves around town in an armored SUV with a horde of unsmiling bodyguards, was quick to build such an effective defense and logistical network.

In 2014, Filatov served as deputy governor of Dnipropetrovsk province under his former business partner Ihor Kolomoisky, who was tapped as part of an experiment to appoint influential oligarchs to the Ukrainian regions at risk of Russia-led separatist insurgencies in 2014. Filatov’s job was to quash any pro-Russian separatist sentiment and groups. As part of that, he and Kolomoisky personally bankrolled several volunteer battalions and offered up rewards for weapons and Russian and pro-Russian agents captured. The bounties included $1,000 for machine guns, $1,500 for heavy machine guns, $2,000 for grenade launchers and $10,000 for Russian agents. Russian forces never captured territory in Dnipropetrovsk, partly due to those efforts but also because of Ukrainian volunteer fighters’ determination.

Filatov has since fallen out with Kolomoisky, who owns the 1+1 television channel that aired Zelenskyy’s hit comedy series “Servant of the People,” which catapulted him to fame. Last week, Zelenskyy reportedly revoked the Ukrainian passport of Kolomoiskiy, who also holds Cypriot and Israeli citizenship.

Filatov isn’t so bothered with that, but he’s angry with Zelenskyy for also reportedly stripping Korban, the Dnipropetrovsk province’s head of the Territorial Defense Forces, of his Ukrainian citizenship.

Korban posted on Facebook this week that border guards banned him from re-entering Ukraine after a trip abroad.

“I hope that this is still just a tragic mistake. I really would not want the central government, taking advantage of the fact that we have a war in our country to start, let’s say, creating an autocracy,” Filatov said in a rare wartime moment of criticism of Zelenskyy, who has won the hearts and minds of millions across the world.

Politicians in Ukraine have unofficially agreed to rally around the flag and set aside differences and grievances to fight as one against Russia.

“War does not give the right to usurp power,” Filatov said. “We do not need a new Putin.”