Kharkiv - The Victory Day program will be considerably curtailed in Kharkiv to prevent risks to people's lives and health, Kharkiv Mayor Gennady Kernes said.
“Today, for the first time in the past few years, we cannot organize a full-fledged celebration for the people of Kharkiv on this day. We have no right to risk citizens’ health and the calm of Kharkiv. According to the information we are getting, some political forces, for which memory of the people killed in that war doesn’t mean anything, are going to turn the Victory Day in our city into a day of pogroms. For this reason, the celebrations program in Kharkiv will be reduced considerably on May 9,” Kernes said in an address published on the official Web site of the Kharkiv City Council.
Kernes said that he, like most people of Kharkiv, honors Victory Day, adding that he is confident that the celebrations of this holiday will resume after the situation in the country normalizes.
“No holiday is more dear to me, like to most of you, than Victory Day,” Kernes said in his address.
Kernes was wounded while jogging in Kharkiv on April 28. He was hospitalized and was then taken to a hospital in Israel on April 29, where he underwent several surgeries. There is currently no threat to his life. On May 4, Kernes posted his first photo since the attack on Instagram. In the photo, he is lying on his hospital bed.
