Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include new information.
For over two months, no one has seen Kharkiv Mayor Hennady Kernes in public. But during that time, he’s managed to decisively win re-election and propel his party to victory in the city council vote.
Unsurprisingly, his absence is starting to raise suspicions.
Kernes’ whereabouts are not entirely unknown. On Sept. 17, he was hospitalized in the Charite hospital in Berlin with COVID-19. His staff and friends report that he is still at the hospital, but is feeling better.
However, no convincing photos of the mayor, nor written statements by him have been released since his hospitalization – even after he won a third term in office in the Oct. 25 local elections.
Many have begun to speculate that Kernes is dead — or close to it.
Missing mayor?
In early November, an anonymous Telegram messenger channel reported that Kernes had indeed died. But his representatives at the Kharkiv City Council called it a lie.
Then the cops got involved.
On Nov. 9, the Kharkiv Oblast Police opened a case into Kernes’ disappearance, after a local political activist and opponent of Kernes filed a missing person report. The report said that “the 61-year-old man couldn’t be contacted” and “his whereabouts were unknown.”
Following the report, the police opened an investigation into the possible murder of Kernes and reported him missing, according to the police website.
However, the mayor remained missing — formally, at least — for only a few hours. Then the police took down the announcement, deeming it “incorrect and irrelevant,” and closed the case due to a lack of evidence that a crime had been committed.
“Mr. Kernes’ whereabouts are known,” Yaroslav Trakalo, deputy head of communications of the Interior Ministry, told the Ukrainska Pravda news website on Nov. 9.
Then, on Nov. 10, Russian-Ukrainian businessman Pavlo Fuks published a photo of Kernes on his Telegram messenger channel. In the image, Kernes appears to be lying in a hospital bed with his stepson Rodion Haisynsky posing next to him in a medical mask. In the image, the Kharkiv mayor appears to be attached to a nasal feeding tube.
The picture also features a comic-style speech bubble, with Kernes saying: “Hello to all Kharkovites! And a special hello to everyone who lost me.”
However, the photo offers more questions than answers. It is unclear when and even where the image was taken. Moreover, if the goal was to reassure the public that Kernes is alive, the photo may have barely served its purpose. Kernes appears alive, but the image does not paint an optimistic picture of his health.
In 2014, Kernes was shot in a failed assassination attempt and has suffered from lingering health problems since then, using a wheelchair for mobility. That contributed to rumors that the mayor had secretly died and his staff was hiding the news from the public.
Absentee election victory
Kernes disappeared from the public eye in August. After he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and bilateral pneumonia, he was hospitalized in a Kharkiv hospital on Sept. 10. He was then flown to the Charite hospital in Berlin, one of the world’s best medical facilities.
But that didn’t prevent him from winning reelection as mayor of Kharkiv. He received 60% of the vote, ensuring his victory in the first round. Kernes represented his own party, the Kernes Bloc, which won nearly 40% of the vote in the city council race.
The Kharkiv City Election Commission registered Kernes as mayor on Nov. 7. The head of the commission, Olha Mozhova, said that her agency had received Kernes’ application for registration as mayor in an electronic form with an electronic signature.
According to the law, Kernes has to participate in the first session of the new city council to take office before Dec. 20. His deputy, Ihor Terehov, said that Kernes will return from the hospital before that date.
