The Interior Ministry is delaying the police reform, including the creation of a new Western-style police force, Yuriy Lutsenko, head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and an ex-interior minister, said late on Sept. 12 at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv.
Speakers at the forum agreed that, without reforming its police and military, Ukraine would not be able to properly resist Russian aggression.
“There is a gap between the law and its execution,” Lutsenko said, commenting on the law on creating a new police force signed by President Petro Poroshenko in August.
The new national police force was supposed to be created in August, but that has not happened yet, and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has not yet appointed its chief, Lutsenko said. He suggested selecting an independent and apolitical person with work experience in the West to head the new police.
Artem Shevchenko, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, denied by phone that there was a delay. He added that the head of the National Police would be appointed soon.
The Interior Ministry has also so far failed to lay off 21,000 police officers and bring the number of police staff to 150,000, as planned, Lutsenko said.
Corrupt officers of the unreformed police force, as well as people returning from the front with weapons, are contributing to an upsurge in crime, he said.
“We see a lot of weapons in Ukraine and people who are ready to use them without any doubt,” Lutsenko said.
New Western-style police patrols have already been launched in Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv. But police patrols in other cities, as well as criminal police and other police units, have not yet been reformed.
Avakov said on Sept. 13 that the new police would replace the old one on Nov. 7.
“If other police units are not reformed and staffed with new people, police patrols, which account for 10 percent of the total personnel, will not be able to operate properly,” Lutsenko told the Kyiv Post. “This healthy branch on a rotten tree will wither away.”
If a police patrol delivers a criminal to a police station with corrupt and inefficient officers, the system will not work, Lutsenko said.
He suggested replacing 70 percent of Interior Ministry investigators and 30 percent of criminal intelligence units with new staff. He attributed the difference to criminal intelligence officers requiring more training.
Deputy Interior Minister Ekaterine Zguladze-Glucksmann also commented on the police reform, saying it was essential for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.
“Internal reforms, internal stabilization and the credit building of society and law enforcement are at the heart of winning this war,” she said.
Ex-Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said at the forum that Russia’s plan had initially been “not to have tank battalions rolling into Kyiv” but “subversion, disorder and undermining the police forces.”
“What you need is public order, public security and a police force that is not corrupt, so that no one can buy it,” he said. “That was possible a year ago. Foreign powers could buy a police force in Ukrainian cities. Restoring (public order) is the No. 1 defense against hybrid warfare.”
Reforming Ukraine’s military is also crucial for winning the war.
Stanley A. McChrystal, an ex-head of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, said that Ukrainian authorities should take into account “proximity to the people” when modernizing the military.
“By proximity I mean ‘does the military reflect the population, the will of the people’?” he said. “If you become disconnected from the people, if you are not their legitimate and credible reflection, then I think you are going down the wrong path.”
David Petraeus, a general who was the former head of the U.S. Central Command, said the military reform would take a long time.
“I’ve overseen this kind of efforts in Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “There’s nothing easy about it… That’s not going to happen in the matter of a year or even years. It’s going to take a generation. But it has started and is under way.”
He said that the reform should include “leader development, schools and courses, training for individuals and units, proper equipping, resourcing and strategy.”
Petreus also said that the government should have a monopoly on the use of force, and there should be a unified chain of command. He welcomed the integration of volunteer units into Ukraine’s military.
He said that a professional military would be more efficient for Ukraine than the current conscript army.
“I far prefer commanding professional forces,” Petraeus said. “If you ask me whether I want to command professionals – people who volunteered to be there – or people who don’t want to be there – that’s an easy choice.”
He praised what the Ukrainian army has achieved since Russia launched its invasion of the country in February 2014.
“Your military has done an extraordinary job on the front line,” Petraeus said. “They made these Russian-supported separatists and Russian forces in some cases pay a very heavy price for every meter of Ukrainian soil that they have taken. And the front line is very stable right now and that’s because of what they have done.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
