Ochakiv City Council admits that withholding information from the media does not help protect the community from shelling
The Ochakiv City Council (Mykolaiv oblast) and, in particular, Mayor Serhiy Bychkov withholding information from the media did not help protect the community from shelling.
Ochakiv Deputy Mayor, Oleksiy Vaskov, spoke about this in his interview with TRC "NIS-TV".
He stressed that Bychkov has not gone anywhere, but he is not a public person and does not enjoy talking to the media.
"But he always keeps his finger on the pulse here, he deals with the incoming humanitarian aid, city rebuilding issues, is constantly in contact with the oblast authorities, and he is always meeting people. When the explosion happened, either he or I were constantly on the ground in the city, siging statements in our lap, one might say. He is always talking to the locals, so all the rumors of him being out of the city are untrue," said Oleksiy Vaskov.
During the interview, the TV channel's journalist noted that Ochakiv residents often complain about the Mayor's alleged absence from social media, as they see no posts or addresses from him. To this, Vaskov replied that the Ochakiv city authorities had decided earlier not to speak publicly for security reasons, but this did not help.
"We used to have a policy of speaking less about the city on social media in general. But it did not help much in terms of shelling and occupation of the Kinburn spit. But both the Mayor and I are in the city almost every day. Not only that, but we are in the city at night, as well. Therefore, all these are rumors and faleshoods coming from malicious people, for sure," he added.
Ochakiv Mayor, Serhiy Bychkov, answered the call by the IMI representative, but refused to confirm or deny his deputy's claims about his secretive attitude towards the media.
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