It’s a story that has shaken Ukrainians to their core and undermined already weak faith in law enforcement.
On May 31, two off-duty police officers in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky, a city of 25,000 people roughly 85 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, were drinking and shooting at tin cans for target practice, when they accidentally shot a five-year-old boy.
The boy, identified as Kyrylo Tliavov, suffered fatal wounds to the head. He died three days later, on June 3, in a Kyiv hospital.
Now, both law enforcement officials and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are promising to bring the perpetrators to justice. But the very nature of the crime and the local police’s early attempt at a cover-up have sparked anger across the country.
To many, Tliavov’s killing is yet another clear sign of Ukraine’s failure to reform its much-maligned law enforcement agencies — whose officers are simultaneously intrusive in economic affairs, yet unable to solve major crimes.
Some activists and protesters are even demanding that the country’s top cop since 2014, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, resign.
Swift state reaction
After Tliavov was shot, local police initially claimed that the boy had been out with his friends and fallen, hitting his head on the asphalt. However, in the local hospital, it quickly became clear that he had suffered a penetrating gunshot wound to the head.
After this, state agencies sprang into action, detaining the suspects and launching an investigation.
On May 31, Serhiy Knyazev, chief of the National Police, confirmed on Facebook that the police officers had been drinking at the time of the incident. He also wrote that the guns used by the officers were not their service weapons.
The two suspects were taken into custody by police and the State Investigations Bureau, Knyazev wrote.
The State Investigations Bureau initially charged the two officers with “careless grievous bodily harm” and “conspiracy.” It also submitted a motion to the Holosiyivsky District Court of Kyiv to hold the suspects in custody without the possibility of bail.
After Tliavov’s death, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko wrote on Facebook that the charges would be requalified as “intentional homicide.”
On June 4, Kyiv’s Holosiyivsky Court ruled to place police officer Ivan Prykhodko, who is suspected of shooting Tliavov, and a second officer, Volodymyr Petrovets, under arrest without the possibility of bail for two months, the Hromadske television channel reported. Two other individuals who were with Prykhodko and Petrovets at the time of the shooting are currently being questioned as witnesses.
The police officers now face charges of “intentional homicide of a young child, committed in conspiracy with a group of individuals” and “hooliganism” involving firearms. If found guilty, they could face up to life in prison, the Ukrainska Pravda news site reported.
Additionally, the State Investigations Bureau opened a parallel criminal case into efforts to cover up the crime. However, the bureau did not make this information public, pro-reform lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem later revealed.
Police are also investigating the possibility that Petrovets’ 14-year-old son could have been the shooter.
Soon, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded to the killing.
Earlier on June 3, Iuliia Mendel, the president’s press secretary, wrote on Facebook that Tliavov had been transported to a specialized neurosurgery hospital in Kyiv. She described his diagnosis as a “penetrating wound to the head, a heavy open craniocerebral trauma, (and) a brain contusion.”
According to Mendel, Zelenskiy pledged to involve foreign medical experts in Tliavov’s case if needed.
After the news of Tliavov’s death broke, Zelenskiy promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“Of course, nothing on earth can comfort (Tliavov’s) loved ones. But I — as a president and as a father — want to assure you that I will do everything so that the guilty parties are brought to justice…” he wrote on Facebook. “This tragedy should become a lesson. Those who are charged with providing for the safety of citizens must constantly remember their responsibility.”
Official shakeup
In his statement, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko wrote that he had sent a letter to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov demanding that the chief of the local police department where the two policemen worked be removed from office.
Shortly thereafter, the Interior Ministry announced that the heads of the local police had been suspended from fulfilling their duties while a decision was made on their future in law enforcement.
On June 4, Dmytro Tsenov, chief of the Kyiv Oblast police, submitted his resignation in connection with Tliavov’s killing.
Despite these actions by the Interior Ministry, Avakov largely remained silent until June 4, never commenting on the shooting of Tliavov. That alone angered many.
Failed reform?
Ukraine has a history of protests erupting after crimes and violence committed by law enforcement.
The most famous case occurred in the summer of 2013 in Mykolaiv Oblast. An infuriated mob stormed a police station in the town of Vradiyivka after two police officers raped a local woman and the authorities allegedly tried to cover it up. The local revolt launched a chain of protests against police brutality and impunity across Ukraine.
It also led to the two officers eventually being sentenced to 15 years behind bars and their accomplice, a local taxi driver, to 11 years.
Many thought these protests helped to launch the EuroMaidan Revolution, which began several months later and overthrew corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
In summer 2015, Ukraine’s post-Maidan government launched a process of reforms to replace the country’s corrupt, Soviet-style militia with a modern, honest police force.
However, the reform has seen mixed results. Many members of the old militia returned to serve in this new police force, and the new police officers have found themselves underfunded and overworked, according to reporting by Hromadske.
Even those officers who were removed from the force after failing the post-2015 attestation were often reinstated by court order. Prykhodko and Petrovets were among these police officers.
Mykhailo Kameniev, an expert on law enforcement and human rights, says that Interior Minister Avakov isn’t the only one who is responsible for reform’s failure. Rather, the entire state system is guilty of making only cosmetic changes to law enforcement.
“In my mind, we cannot say that the reform actually took place,” he told the Kyiv Post.
Moreover, Russia’s war in Donbas has had a distinctly negative influence on the security situation in other regions. Although Ukraine remains a largely safe country, the war led to a spike in the proliferation of weapons — including things like hand grenades and even rocket-propelled grenades — from the warzone to civilian areas.
After the killing of Tliavov, frustrations with law enforcement boiled to the surface.
On June 3, over 100 people — including members of the far-right C14 organization — gathered in front of the Interior Ministry building to demand that the officers responsible be punished, Ukrainska Pravda reported. The activists burnt flares and called for Avakov to be sacked.
The next day in the Verkhovna Rada, the Samopomich and Batkivshchyna parties demanded that Avakov, National Police Chief Knyazev, and State Investigations Bureau head Roman Truba be called before parliament.
“We must make this an issue of political responsibility,” Samopomich lawmaker Olena Sotnyk said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. Sotnyk was also involved in calling people to protest in front of the Interior Ministry.
Artur Herasymov, leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, which was recently renamed European Solidarity, called for the punishment of those who were attempting to cover up the crime.
Later on June 4, Knyazev and Avakov met with Tliavov’s mother and grandmother. They agreed to closely monitor the investigation into Tliavov’s killing, organize psychological help for the boy’s older brother, and pay for Tliavov’s funeral.
Nonetheless, that evening, around 200 protesters gathered outside the Interior Ministry. They laid stuffed animals, toys, and candles by the ministry’s front doors. Some called for Avakov’s resignation.
In Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky around 50 people protested outside the local police station on June 5. Some lit flares and threw smoke grenades. Two police officers were injured during the demonstration.
Since then, the picture hasn’t gotten much better. On June 5, National Police Chief Knyazev stated that one of the two police officers accused of Tliavov’s killing had “systematically violated societal norms of behavior” in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky.
“The local residents had many complaints of human nature against him,” he said. “But there was no response from the (police) unit’s leaders.”
That same day, Interior Minister Avakov said that there were five suspects in the case. Four of them fired guns, and the investigation would determine which one was responsible for Tliavov’s death. The fifth suspect, a woman, is believed to have hidden the weapon.
Later, in a session of the Verkhovna Rada’s committee on law enforcement, Knyazev said that on May 22 — before Tliavov’s killing — he had fired virtually all the bosses of the Kyiv Oblast police service. He said that regional law enforcement was lagging behind other oblasts in implementing reforms and efforts to prevent crimes.
In other words, the leadership of the Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky police had likely only been serving for roughly a week when Tliavov was killed.
After the committee meeting, lawmaker Nayyem wrote on Facebook that he had “bad news about the investigation of the tragedy in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky.”
He went on to list a series of failures by law enforcement:
The State Investigations Bureau had not looked into why Tliavov was only given an x-ray six hours after entering the hospital, which goes against protocol, he said. After the suspects refused to take an alcohol test and allow a biological inspection of their hands, the bureau had not attempted to get a court order to force them, he wrote.
Investigators had also not managed to find the rifle that the suspects had been shooting, Nayyem wrote.
Not going anywhere
That same day, Avakov also told journalists that he did not plan to resign and saw no reason for Knyazev to step down either.
That will likely pose a political challenge for Zelenskiy. The new president has spoken out repeatedly on the killing of Tliavov, at one point writing that “five-year-old Kyrylo does not leave my thoughts.”
But Zelenskiy has also praised Avakov’s work. Moreover, oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — formerly Zelenskiy’s business partner — has claimed that the interior minister is an old friend. Critics of Zelenskiy fear that Kolomoisky will exert influence on the new president.
On May 27, during an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Kolomoisky said that he believes Avakov should remain in office under Zelenskiy.
But political expert Volodymyr Fesenko is skeptical both that Avakov will be ousted and that Tliavov’s killing will complicate the start of Zelenskiy’s presidency. Forced resignation is a complex procedure dependent on the outgoing parliament and Zelenskiy is too new to be blamed for the tragedy.
“Appeals to the president to fire Avakov are misplaced because the president does not have such authority,” Fesenko told the Kyiv Post.
Meanwhile, as Ukrainian politicians and officials continue to discuss the investigation into the two police officers and three other suspects, and as the story dominates Ukrainian headlines, life has continued in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky.
On June 5, on the outskirts of the town, the Tliavov family buried their five-year-old son.
Parents mourn by the coffin of their son, 5-year-old Kyrylo Tliavov, during his funeral in the town of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky on June 5, 2019. Tliavov was allegedly shot in the head by drunken off-duty police officers on May 31. He succumbed to his wounds several days later. (Ukrinform)
