National Police Chief Khatia Dekanoidze is waging a non-stop battle against corrupt cops, institutional resistance and a small budget.
The former Georgian education minister and former head of Georgia’s main police academy took over as the head of Ukraine’s new national police force in November.
While the long hours frequently leave her exhausted at the end of the workday, Dekanoidze is not about to stop.
“Reforming is like cycling,” she said. “Once you stop, you fall. I’ll do my best to make sure that we don’t stop, despite the problems, including a small budget.”
She’s under no illusions about the type of people she’s trying to root out. The corrupt cops who she is trying to fire are the same as the criminals they should be chasing.
“Why would they have to (go to organized crime)? They were already part of criminal clans,” Dekanoidze said.
As far as she is concerned, there’s no difference between corrupt police officers and the criminals they’re supposed to be catching.
In contrast, Ukraine’s new police officers “must have the goal of protecting our citizens, not engaging in racketeering and extorting money from businesses,” Dekanoidze said.
To transform Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt law enforcement, Dekanoidze has been vetting police officers more closely since her appointment.
Representatives of civil society have been included in vetting commissions, and Dekanoidze’s reform efforts have been praised by civic activists. But mistakes have also been made.
Pro-Russian police chief
A major test for Dekanoidze came after evidence emerged that Anton Shevtsov, who was appointed as chief of Vinnitsya Oblast’s police in February, had pro-Russian leanings. She fired him under public pressure on March 14.
The Kyiv Post interviewed Dekanoidze the same day, after she had been trying to tamp down the Shevtsov scandal.
Journalists even spotted the former oblast police chief sneaking out of her office. Dekanoidze was also in a hurry, on the way to a meeting at the Presidential Administration.
Critics say it took Dekanoidze too long to dismiss Shevstov. Evidence of his pro-Russian views was first published in February. Another complaint is that he was appointed as chief of the region’s police without being properly vetted.
Dekanoidze said, however, that she could not base her decision “on emotions” and had needed to confirm the media reports.
Ukrainian media have published video footage that shows Shevtsov marching with a St. George’s ribbon, a pro-Russian separatist symbol, in Russian-occupied Sevastopol during a Victory Day parade on May 9, 2014.
Shevtsov’s wife Yelena has regularly made pro-Russian posts on her social network accounts.
Meanwhile, Alexander Seliverstov, a deputy of Shevtsov, was the police chief in separatist-controlled Stakhanov in Luhansk Oblast in 2014. Video footage shows Seleverstov explaining that he did not want to take down a Russian flag at his police department, as well as him with a St. George’s ribbon at a separatist rally.
For Dekanoidze, such cases have personal resonance. “I was born and grew up in a country where 25 percent of the territory is occupied by Russia,” Dekanoidze said. “And so for me too, this is unacceptable.”
Replacing leadership
The vetting of police officers was launched in November and has already been completed in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast and Khmelnytsky Oblast. Vetting is also under way in Mykolayiv, Odesa, Volyn and Rivne oblasts.
As a result of the vetting in Kyiv, 13 percent of all police officers, 70 percent of mid-level police officers and 80 percent of top police officials were fired, Dekanoidze said in February.
She told the Kyiv Post that the top police leadership in regions outside the capital had also been replaced during vetting, and new top police officials would be appointed nationwide.
Trust is paramount
Dekanoidze said regaining society’s trust was a key prerequisite for carrying out the vetting process and police reform.
“If we don’t engage with society, we won’t have any trust,” she said. “If we have society’s support, and if it understands where we’re going, we will have a shared success story.”
Dekanoidze said that Ukraine “should consolidate the whole of society around the police, because that’s the only thing that we have.”
“The most important thing is for you to be patient enough to wait for us to change everything,” she said.
But some representatives of civil society are still critical.
Alexandra Drik, head of the Civic Lustration Committee, told the Kyiv Post that Dekanoidze had ignored the committee’s requests to meet with her group. The committee oversees compliance with the lustration law, which envisages firing officials linked to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Moreover, Drik said that Dekanoidze had initially failed to respond to the committee’s proposals to fire then-Kyiv Police Chief Oleksandr Tereshchuk, along with Vasyl Paskal, then a deputy head of the National Police.
She also said that the National Police had not taken into account lustration criteria during the vetting of police officers – a charge that Dekanoidze denied.
Another proposal that triggered criticism was a plan to transfer to the Donbas those police officers who failed to meet the minimum requirements to serve in other parts of the country. Dekanoidze said the war zone lacks police, but no final decision has been made on the issue.
Oliynyk case
Another scandal erupted on Feb. 7, when a police officer shot dead a passenger in a high-speed car chase in Kyiv. Patrol officers opened fire on a BMW sport utility vehicle with four passengers inside after they noticed that the vehicle’s occupants were consuming alcohol.
The driver repeatedly ignored the police’s request to pull over and was speeding throughout the capital, violating numerous traffic rules, the police said.
The police officer, Serhiy Oliynyk, is now a suspect in the killing of a 17-year-old passenger and faces a murder trial.
His case received publicity after he was sentenced to two-month pre-trial detention before being put under house arrest, while the driver of the BMW, Rostyslav Khrapachevskiy, was released on bail on March 1.
On Feb. 21, at least 1,000 protesters took to the capital’s streets in support of the patrol police.
“It’s the first time in Ukraine’s history that people have come out in support of the police force,” Dekanoidze said. “For a police officer a weapon is not an accessory. When there is a threat to people’s lives – and there was one – weapons have to be used.”
Critics blame a lack of police training for the shooting. But Dekanoidze said newcomers undergo an intensive three-month program before joining the force, and regular training afterwards.
Resistance to reform
Dekanoidze also faces stubborn resistance to reform. “They got used to working this way and felt comfortable when they were sitting in this swamp, with no one touching them,” she said.
Several fired police officers are disputing their dismissals in court. So far, no court rulings on these appeals have been issued, she added.
“It’s like a Damocles’ sword hanging over them,” she said. “But I will not allow them to be re-instated in our ranks as long as I live.”
Higher wages needed
Reducing corruption and hiring new, honest people is impossible without increasing wages, Dekanoidze said. Monthly wages for rank-and-file officers at police precincts have already increased to Hr 4,000 from Hr 2,500.
But that’s still less than $200 per month.
“We must transform their mentality to make a police officer a person of honor,” Dekanoidze added. “We can’t do that with a Hr 4,000 wage.”
