Residents of the capital complain that it was hardly possible to call police last month. Officers of the Ministry of the Interior admit that they are simply demoralized.
“The police have been pessimistic,” says a criminal investigator in Kiev. “Our profession is awfully disrespected, people don’t appreciate our work. From the 18th till the 23rd or so, we were completely depressed. We sat discussing why we should go to work. Half of us thought about quitting, and some guys did quit because of “low wages”, as they put it. Actually, it’s not only about the wages. People started blaming the police for everything the government did wrong, saying we were responsible. Why? We weren’t connected to anyone, and most of us went to work every day. How could we find out which order wasn’t legal? Today, though, most of us have pulled ourselves together, and we decided that as long as we are not dismissed or fired, we’ll work.”
The absence of the police on the streets led to an extremely high crime rate.
“At the end of February, there was an increase in robbery and looting,” say members of the press service of the main administration of the Ministry of the Interior in Kiev. “For example, on the 25th of February alone, 17 open armed attacks and 7 riots were reported, but then the number of those reports started to decrease. On the 27th, only 4 robberies and no riots were reported. There are also plenty of false reports because people are really scared these days.”
In the region, the situation is a bit more positive.
“In the country, people still respect and trust the police”, says Nikolay Zhukovich, head of the press service of the police in the Kiev region. “That’s why the police have been working almost as always. And overall, the situation from the beginning of the year is not worse than during the same period last year. As for robberies and burglary, empty mansions of people who were in power yesterday are sure to top the list now. For example, the first ones to visit the house of Pyotr Simonenko was Self-Defense. But they looked around the estate and left, with nothing touched. And then there were masked men who inflicted the arson. The house of Andriy Klyuyev, former head of the presidential administration, in the Obukhov district, was guarded by the State Security Service. Some suspicious people went in there twice. When they came for the first time, they clashed with the security, who managed to repel the attack, although one of the security guards was injured. Soon, however, the bandits came again and the attack was repelled, but they stole the server with all the surveillance cameras records.”
The unstable situation in the country has led to big waves of petty criminals, so called “gopniks”. They rob people on the streets and take revenue in kiosks and small shops.
An attempted murder of the chairperson of the local council horrified residents of the village Protsev in the Boryspil district.
“A man, who has a lot of previous convictions for serious crimes, got out of jail and decided that since there’s a revolution in Kiev now, it’s time for some crime,” says Sergey Kinter, a local policeman, who has been made a hero by these events here. “While he didn’t have any connections to the village, he read in a newspaper that it was as a prosperous one (Yanukovych came to open a kindergarten there last year. – Reporter) and came here. He met people who liked to drink and they began seeking information. That’s how he learned that that the chairperson was a lonely woman. Strangling the guard of the estate, the criminal hid woman in the woman’s house and when she came, became extorting money. She told him where she kept a few thousand dollars.”
She managed to escape the bandit by a miracle. She is now in hospital with stab wounds. And the whole village helped to catch the robber. Headed by a local policeman, they managed to get him in the end.
Moreover, on the outskirts of the capital, as well as in villages, there have been waves of streets holligans, so called titushky.
“We knew that during the last days of the revolution, at least 5 thousand of titushky were brought to Kiev,” says Valentin Likholit, an Afghan from the Maidan. “Since the government has swiftly left the country, nobody could pay for a return ticket for these lads. They settled on the outskirts of Kiev, and they need something to eat and to live, that’s why they loot.”
A notable example of this was a situation in the village Osykovo, near Kiev. Five men armed with bats broke into the house of Boris Osipenko, the Maidan activist and businessman, and kidnapped him on his own minibus Hyundai H1. The man, beaten and handcuffed to the steering wheel, was found a couple of days later.
“The family of Boris Ivanovich believe that these people were afraid to pass through the checkpoints of Self-Defense and the police, that’s why they forced him to drive. Now he is in serious condition in hospital 17 in Kiev,” says Julia Kiyashko, a friend of the Osipenko family. “And the raiders have not been detained.”
