The head of a Kyiv district who proposed digging cesspits advised residents to use cat litter

The head of Kyiv’s Desnianskyi District State Administration, Maksym Bakhmatov, suggested that residents of the capital whose sewage systems have frozen should use cat litter.

The official made the suggestion in an interview with the outlet RBC-Ukraine.

Bakhmatov believes people should not leave Kyiv, as the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has urged.

“We need to stay in Kyiv, dig pits for toilets, and hold the line, because the enemy wants us to leave. It’s unpleasant, humiliating—it’s a catastrophe to dig pits, but it has already happened. We need to survive however we can: set up portable toilets, bags, cat litter. But we have to keep fighting,” Bakhmatov said.

He added that there is no funding to install 10–20 portable toilets near every building, and that pit latrines are the only way out in the current situation.

“Three hundred thousand people will come to me. What am I going to tell them? Go outside? Right? What will the district turn into? At least I’ll try to direct this flow somehow,” the district head said.

He also recalled that a few days earlier, in an interview with Left Bank, he had already spoken about the need to dig outdoor toilets in Troieshchyna.