Police, civilian patrols work to restore public order to Kyiv's streets

Hundreds of men and women have joined civiliian patrols to keep the peace in Ukraine’s capital. They are helping separate units of EuroMaidan people's self-defense groups whose members -- wearing military fatigues, bulletproof vests and helmets, and armed with baseball bats and clubs -- are still on duty to protect and defend Kyiv. 

With the changeover in government on Feb. 22, precipitated by the impeachment and fugitive flight of former President Viktor Yanukovych, the civilian patrols, EuroMaidan people's self-defense groups and police have gone from being in conflict with each other to trying to work together to prevent crime and violence. 

It’s a monumental task, but thus far the new alliance seems to be working.

The new formations, combined with the fact that the public polices itself quite nicely most of the time, means that Kyiv has not descended into chaos. It’s not burning and most businesses are operating normally again. Moreover, judging by the number of people on the central streets even late at night, fears are not running high.

Police and security forces largely withdrew from the city on Feb. 22, following a violent week of clashes with protesters that left scores dead and hundreds injured. Their flight coincided with the vanishing act of Viktor Yanukovych, the disgraced former president who was impeached that same day and hasn’t been seen since.

Some police returned to the streets this week, although they are hugely outnumbered by self-defense members. In an effort to restore their image, they have begun cooperating with the volunteer guards.

Batkivshchyna Party lawmaker Arsen Avakov, who was appointed acting interior minister by parliament on Feb. 22, has made a series of changes in an attempt to improve the image of police, including disbanding the feared Berkut riot police. But those changes have thus far failed to restore trust in law enforcement.

Viktoriya Tyshchenko, a coordinator of the the civil guard units, says it was police who first approached her guards with the offer to jointly patrol Kyiv’s streets again, specifically to guard against potential provocations by titushkis, hired thugs loyal to the former government. But she said police were too slow in their offer, as titushkis had already fled the city.

“I’d like to know where they (police) were at the time when titushkis burned cars and smashed windows,” Tyshchenko said. According to her, there are several hundred volunteers in civil guard units in Kyiv, most of them are young men in their 30s and 40s.

“On one hand, police try to improve their image that’s why they patrol the streets with us,” says Artem Kononenko, a member of civic guard unit of Kyiv’s Solomyanka district. “On the other hand, police do not want to patrol the streets alone as they are afraid of people’s revenge (for their own or their colleagues’ wrongdoing during the protests).”

He said he had witnessed how some taxi drivers were ready to “lynch” traffic police officers, having recognized those who were extorting bribes from them months earlier.

Police car patrols now are fewer than before. In each district of Kyiv there around two police cars on patrol compared to some 40-50 civil car patrols at a time, civil guards say.

Oles Malyarevych, one of the coordinators of a civic self-defense unit in Kyiv’s Rusanivka district, said that despite their differences, civil guards need the help of police because the officers have the authority to detain suspicious passersby and to carry weapons.

Malyarevych praises the cooperation with the local police as “fruitful,” calling local police officers simply “ordinary guys.”

Over the last three days police and civil guards managed to detain four suspects – two local armed criminals that attempted an assault against a young lady, one armed titushka from Donetsk and a local thief who broke the window of a parked car in an attempt to steel a handbag, he said.

Kononenko from Solomyanka, on the contrary, believes that police still tend to behave as usual, avoiding their responsibilities when it comes to confronting their own.

“It’s clear that they (police) are demoralized,” he said. “Our task is to promote civil society and to make them (police) understand that the police have to serve the people.”

It’s not clear how long the civic guards will patrol and control the streets, but many say they are prepared to remain there until safety is ensured and the police start behaving more professionally.

“Before police provide public order we have a right to ensure our safety ourselves,” Malyarevych said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at trach@kyivpost.com.