Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv: From boxing to politics
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
BBC
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did the world heavyweight champion end up running a city of 3 million people in wartime?
Vitali Klitschko joins Nick from the Ukrainian capital in the midst of a Russian campaign to descimate the city's energy infrastructure.
He talks about what peace could look like, the lessons he learned from living under Soviet rule as a child, and why he decided to abandon a lucrative life in the US to enter Ukrainian politics.
Senior producer: Daniel Kraemer Producer: Flora Murray Sound: Ged Sudlow Editor: Giles Edwards
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.5 | All too often, the language of politics is the language of conflict of war. |
| 0:12.1 | People speak of fights and battles and coups. |
| 0:15.5 | My guest on political thinking this week is all too aware of the difference between the two. |
| 0:20.4 | He's the mayor of Kiev, |
| 0:21.4 | the capital of Ukraine, which came under fire for the first time 205 weeks ago when Vladimir |
| 0:27.9 | Putin ordered Russian troops to invade their neighbour. To fight is the first principle of life, |
| 0:33.8 | says Vitali Klitschko, who made his name and made his fortune in the boxing ring, |
| 0:38.0 | where he and his younger brother dominated for year after year. The former heavyweight champion |
| 0:43.9 | of the world now says he's fighting for his values and for his country's future, not least in |
| 0:50.1 | the depths of a bleak and bitter winter when Russian attacks on Ukrainian power supplies |
| 0:55.4 | mean Keev is facing what my guest has warned could be a humanitarian catastrophe. |
| 1:08.7 | Vitaly Klichko, Mayor of Keith, welcome to political thinking. |
| 1:12.8 | Thank you, Nick. |
| 1:13.9 | Great to talk to you. |
| 1:15.2 | Great to talk to everyone. |
| 1:16.5 | And I will be ready to give impression from our hometown, from Ukraine. |
| 1:23.4 | Can you begin by giving us a sense of where are you talking to us from? |
| 1:27.1 | And what sort of nights have you just had? |
| 1:30.0 | Every evening we keep our finger crossed for our air defense because right now it's a lot of depend from our military |
| 1:40.2 | because every night Russians try to send ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, |
| 1:47.0 | kamikaze drones to our hometown and destroyed life of our citizens. |
... |
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