The Western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Kalush have filed lawsuits against Ukraine’s central government demanding an end to the COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.
A few more cities in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast followed suit, according to the mayor of the region capital.
“We filed a lawsuit against the Cabinet of Minister in the Kyiv District Administrative Court,” Ruslan Martsinkiv, the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, a city of 230,000 some 550 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, said in a briefing on Sept. 4.
The mayors of Ternopil and Kalush stated that they are also participating in the legal action. The city of Ternopil is the capital of Ternopil Oblast, 420 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, with a population of 220,000. Kalush is a city in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, located 602 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, and has a population of 67,000.
“Ternopil supports the lawsuit of Ivano-Frankivsk and other cities against the government with a demand to abolish the illegal restrictions that contradict the Constitution of Ukraine,” Ternopil mayor Serhiy Nadal stated on Facebook.
Ihor Matviychuk, the mayor of Kalush, invoked the Constitutional Court’s Aug. 28 ruling, which said that the Cabinet of Ministers can’t legally impose restrictions. Only parliament can do so, he stated on Facebook.
Matviychuk also said that other cities in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast have decided to support the lawsuit at a meeting of the Association of Ukrainian Cities.
The cities are protesting being sorted into the “red zone” of the adaptive quarantine, which means they will have to tighten restrictions. These include a ban on public transport, educational institutions, shopping malls, cafes and restaurants, which means a severe blow to local economies.
Starting Sept. 7, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kalush, Kolomyia and two districts of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast will be in the red zone. The same goes for the cities of Ternopil, Berezhany, Chortkiv and seven districts in Ternopil Oblast.
Ukraine’s COVID-10 threat levels that come into force on Sept. 7, 2020. (Public Health Center of Ukraine)
Nadal, who has been sick with COVID-19, said that Ternopil will not tighten restrictions to the red threat level. But the Ternopil Oblast police said it will bring to justice those who don’t follow the quarantine.
In a series of Facebook posts, Nadal also accused the government of trying to blockade Western Ukraine for defending the Ukrainian language and protesting against the “criminal” rise in gas and electricity prices. Nadal even compared the government’s policies to those of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
“They use the same methods as the food squads during the Holodomor of ’33, when communists surrounded the villages, taking the last crumbs of bread, seizing the means of production and ultimately killing millions of Ukrainians just for wanting to be Ukrainians,” Nadal said, referring to the Soviet genocide by famine.
