Interior Minister Arsen Avakov recently informed Ukrainians on Facebook that the police force is undergoing reform. Soon, police officers will become police officers, and their ranks will thin out. The reform concept is already in place, and radical changes will be unleashed on the police force as early as October.
Avakov came up with this “original” idea after the Verkhovna Rada authorized the creation of “people’s militia” units in certain regions of Donbas.
"All members of the expert group, from civil activists to experienced police officers, agreed: 'We don't want to be associated with that police,'" the minister wrote. According to him, "the police are a vestige of the Soviet era and stand for 'armed people's militia.' The police, however, are a professional government agency, called upon to maintain law and order, avoiding punitive functions."
According to information released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the reform, in addition to renaming, will involve cutting some units. Specifically, agencies such as the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GUBOP), the transport and veterinary police, the juvenile police, and all special forces units such as Berkut, Griffin, and Cobra will be eliminated. In their place, a single special forces unit will be created, modeled on the American SWAT (a unit in American law enforcement agencies that uses light military-style weapons and special tactics in high-risk operations requiring capabilities and skills beyond those of ordinary police officers). The number of newly commissioned police officers will be reduced from 376 to 300 per 100,000 people. Police officers will be required to undergo recertification in accordance with the lustration law. This will be done to clean up the ranks and increase salaries for law enforcement officers. However, future police officers shouldn't expect a significant raise. According to media reports, their salaries, currently averaging 3,000 hryvnias, will increase by 200-1000 hryvnias.
The idea of renaming and reforming law enforcement agencies is far from new. Former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko once proposed it. Furthermore, the former government was already preparing such changes in early 2013. Plans were underway to reform the Ukrainian militia by 2015, renaming it the National Police, which would ensure the implementation of core law enforcement functions.
The internal affairs agencies, of course, need reform.
Corruption, bribery, and protection rackets have long been synonymous with the police. And lustration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is necessary, the sooner the better. However, renaming the militia "police" isn't necessary. At least not now, when the country is in the throes of a deep political and economic crisis. Changing the name is pure populism, aimed at the average citizen, but it also requires considerable budgetary resources. This includes new ammunition, equipment, and much more. Retraining Ministry of Internal Affairs officers, not to mention SWAT, also requires funding and the involvement of foreign specialists. This is expensive, and the state budget currently lacks funds even for salaries and pensions, let alone a comprehensive reform.
However, the problem isn't just the timeliness of this reform. The reforms to the internal affairs agencies are being initiated by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who himself is deeply mired in criminal matters.
Arsen Avakov is involved in a number of criminal cases, including particularly serious ones such as murder.
The current Minister of Internal Affairs has had a criminal record since the mid-90s. Back then, he was in business, starting out by buying up vouchers and dealing in corporate promissory notes. He was a banker, working for JSCB Basis, whose interests he openly lobbied for while serving as governor of the Kharkiv region. Even his fellow members of the "orange" camp couldn't stand his insolence. In November 2005, then-Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko issued an ultimatum to Arsen Avakov asking him to leave members of his team alone. Avakov had built a sizeable business empire. According to the website "Dossier," Arsen Borisovich and members of his family were involved in the creation of several enterprises. Among them: JSC Investor, JSCB Basis, CJSC Saltovsky Bread Factory, LLC Investor-Naftogaz, DP Investor Elite Stroy, JSC TEC-3, LLC JV Ukrainian Tea Factory Ahmad Tea. He was a co-owner of the football clubs Metalist and Kharkiv.
Overall, the current Minister of Internal Affairs is a wealthy man. According to Focus magazine's 2011 wealth ranking, Avakov's net worth was estimated at $282.9 million (ranking him 65th in the list of Ukraine's 200 richest people). However, as already mentioned, Avakov is far from a law-abiding citizen.
According to Criminal Ukraine, since 1993, Avakov's name has repeatedly appeared in Kharkiv police investigations, and he has been investigated for involvement in a number of serious crimes:
— the murder of business partner Alexander Konovalov, deputy chairman of JSC Investor (Avakov was president. The crime was not solved);
— theft on an especially large scale of gas condensate from the Balakleya field of the Shebelinkagazdobycha gas production enterprise;
— appropriation of significant funds during the sale of condensate through their commercial structures – the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Kharkiv District Processing Plant”, the Fuel Additives Production Factory CJSC, Investor-Neftegaz LLC, and Investor-Atika CJSC by significantly understating the cost of gas condensate.
According to the publication, companies controlled by Arsen Avakov were previously developing four Ukrainian gas condensate fields in the Kharkiv region. Specifically, the Ogultsovskoye, Narizhnyanskoye, Maryinskoye, and Sakhalinskoye fields.
Law enforcement officials have only managed to hold Avakov accountable once. In January 2012, the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office conducted an investigation into the illegal actions of Avakov, the former head of the regional state administration, in signing and issuing state title deeds for land plots to a limited liability company. The investigation concluded that, due to the illegal actions of officials from the regional state administration and the Main Directorate of the State Land Committee in the Kharkiv Oblast, the intended use of state-owned agricultural land with a total area of nearly 55 hectares, valued at over UAH 5,5 million, was illegally changed in 2009.
The court ordered Arsen Avakov to be held in pretrial detention. However, Avakov went on the run. He fled to Italy, where he remained until October 2012, when he was elected as a member of parliament on the Batkivshchyna party list.
The paradox isn't just that a man with a criminal record has been appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. Apparently, after taking charge of the police, Avakov did everything possible to close all the cases brought against him. As head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Borysovych continues to do what the police are criticized for. He protects and lets cases slide. For example, the case surrounding the Odesa tragedy that occurred on May 2 remains unsolved. As a reminder, clashes between supporters of federalization of Ukraine and Maidan supporters, followed by a fire in the Trade Union Building, resulted in the deaths of 48 people. The cause of the clashes, which resulted in so many deaths, remains unknown. The police have all but closed the investigation, as senior management is uninterested in solving the case. Media reports suggest that former Secretary of the National Security Council Andriy Parubiy and Dnipropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoisky may have been involved in the tragedy.
Also, none of the people who ordered, organized, or carried out the murders, torture, beatings, and abductions of participants in this winter's civil protests have been prosecuted. In fact, all the potential masterminds fled Ukraine, and no one particularly hindered them. But even those who allowed Yanukovych and company to leave the country were not prosecuted for abuse of office.
Furthermore, Arsen Avakov bears direct responsibility for the tragedy near Ilovaisk, which left over 100 people dead and many Ukrainian soldiers missing and captured. President Petro Poroshenko recently explained the causes of the Ilovaisk tragedy. According to him, the tragedy in Ilovaisk, where Ukrainian army units were encircled and suffered significant losses during their escape, was caused by a three-day delay in the arrival of reinforcements, as well as the flight of some units. Had the reinforcements arrived on time and some units not withdrawn, the operational situation, according to the president, could have been worse for the invading regular Russian army units.
Units under the control of the Minister of Internal Affairs fled. The 5th Territorial Defense Battalion "Prykarpattia," consisting of four hundred fighters, left the anti-terrorist operation zone and headed home in military vehicles and weapons. The military prosecutor's office arrested the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vitaliy Komar, and is investigating a criminal case for desertion related to the actions of the Prykarpattia fighters who left Ilovaisk. But no one is saying why the battalion suddenly withdrew from its base. It's unlikely that the Prykarpattia commander failed to report to his superiors, and in particular to Avakov, that the unit was leaving the ATO zone. However, the Minister of Internal Affairs hasn't said a word about why the battalion departed at a critical moment.
Now, Arsen Avakov is announcing to the entire country that he will reform the Ministry of Internal Affairs. How can someone, essentially a crime boss, do something like that? Or even hold any government office? Incidentally, both Maidan protesters and Right Sector demanded Avakov's resignation after the "arrest" of one of the organization's members, Sashko Bilyi (Muzychenko), who was allegedly shot while attempting to escape. However, eyewitnesses claim he was simply executed.
So, if anyone in the police force needs to be purged, it's Arsen Avakov himself, first and foremost. Incidentally, he's running for parliament on the list of Arsen Yatsenyuk's People's Front—apparently to ensure his parliamentary immunity, just in case. Meanwhile, the Minister of Internal Affairs is diligently displaying his "vigorous" activity on social media and television, intending to implement reforms to throw Ukrainians off guard and deflect suspicion. Instead of actually fighting and benefiting the country, he's running for parliament and has been engaged in self-promotion for months.
Special correspondent
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