Families of the officers killed in a firefight in the early hours of Dec. 4 between three Ukrainian police units are likely to receive payouts of around Hr 700,000 ($27,000). That’s according to Interior Ministry Advisor Anton Herashchenko, who told journalists that if all the units “observed all their instructions and acted according to the law, their families should receive compensation.”
An investigation is underway after police officers opened fire on each other in Knyazhychi village, some 30 kilometers west of Kyiv. Five members of the security forces lost their lives in what was, according to the official version of events, a police operation to catch suspected thieves that went wrong.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a meeting on Dec. 5 with top security officials to discuss the incident. Poroshenko expressed hope that “the truth will be established in a short space of time and that those who are guilty of issuing the orders that led to such tragic consequences will feel the full extent of the law.”
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, currently on an official visit to Canada, has yet to publicly comment. The ministry has said the investigation into the deaths of the police officers is to be led by Avakov’s deputy, Sergey Yaravoy. The General Prosecutor’s Office has also taken up the case.
Herashchenko has published a report on the shootout on his Facebook page. He writes that officers from Kyiv’s criminal investigation department, backed by special operations agents, traveled to Knyazhychi with the hope of catching a criminal gang as they carried out a robbery on a home. Two policemen were placed near the house in question to act as lookouts. When an alarm sounded in a different house nearby, a separate security unit arrived to investigate. They apprehended the policemen acting as lookouts and a firefight ensued, in total claiming five lives: two men from the criminal investigation department, two from the security unit and one special operations agent.
The gang of robbers who were the original target of the police operation were later caught after they fled the scene in the direction of Kyiv.
Herashchenko has rejected suggestions that the gunfight broke out because police in Knyazhychi were themselves behind a string of robberies which have hit the village. He described such allegations as “utterly ridiculous.”
