The issue of the right of Ukrainians to own weapons for their own defense should be resolved after taking into account all the weapons that they now have – to think through everything step by step to avoid complicating the crime situation, said the head of the National Police Igor Klymenko.
In an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on the results of the survey, which showed the demand of Ukrainians for possession of weapons to protect themselves and their families, Klymenko emphasized the need to “separate military operations and peaceful life.”
“When the full-scale war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine began, the right, in my opinion, decision was made to arm our citizens. This made it possible to stop the enemy and be in relative safety for those who were at some distance from the line of military clashes,” the head said. National Police.
At the same time, he added that Ukrainians are returning to the de-occupied territories, the country is trying to return to peaceful life.
“Since the beginning of hostilities, only criminal investigation officers have seized more than a thousand firearms, more than 100 grenade launchers and 350 thousand ammunition from illegal circulation. Thousands of weapons in their hands can pose a threat to the lives of peaceful and law-abiding citizens,” the head of the National Police stressed.
“So, everything must first be returned to the warehouses, taken into account or blown up, as explosive experts do, and then we return to the issue of weapons possession. That is, first of all, we must take into account all the weapons that our citizens currently have” , – expressed the opinion of Klimenko.
According to him, the police in the first days of the invasion issued about 18 thousand weapons, they were taken into account, and the military also took into account the weapons they issued. “But there are a lot of captured weapons, of unknown origin, ammunition,” the head of the National Police added.
Klymenko also pointed out that the criminal world, which “quieted a little” at the beginning of the war, will be active again, and crime will rise to the level of peacetime.
He summed up: “Therefore, there should be a step by step: first, a register to understand how many weapons are on hand, who has them. And only after that we can talk about what weapons, what caliber and what class should be in the hands of our citizens – be it a machine gun, a carbine or a pistol.”
The European Union donated communication equipment to the National Police of Ukraine (NPU) and the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) worth over EUR 200,000.
Apart from the daily essential services, the NPU and SBGS are courageously defending Ukraine and insuring protection of its citizens. This donation is one of many that will enhance communication and coordination between the law enforcement agencies; it adds to the resilience of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s ongoing military invasion.
“The support from international partners is extremely important to us, because there is often a lack of any technical communication capabilities in regions where active hostilities continue. This equipment will enable the use of encrypted communication channels. Thanks to the technical support received, we have provided three regions and several National Police units with high-quality stable communication,” said Leonid Tymchenko, Head of NPU’s Department of Information and Analytical Support.
The NPU received nearly 600 items worth EUR 205,000. The SBGS obtained about 30 items worth more than EUR 10,000.
The donation comes as one of many delivered within the PRAVO Police project, which is currently refocused on providing an emergency assistance to Ukraine’s law enforcement and rule of law agencies. The EU project is implemented by UNOPS in close coordination with the EU Advisory Mission (EUAM) Ukraine.
More than 120 police officers of Kyiv region provide protection of public safety and order at the Boryspil airport during the arrival of Hasidic pilgrims, the Interior Ministry’s Telegram channel reported on Wednesday.
“The police are carrying out a set of security measures so that Israelis and citizens of other foreign countries can celebrate the Jewish New Year in safety. A number of services are involved in ensuring public safety and order: Boryspil district police, patrol police, special police, explosives, dialogue police and more than 50 servicemen of the National Guard,” the report said.
There is also a Situation Center at the airport, which is also responsible for coordinating the activities of the law enforcement units involved.
As reported, this year the mass celebration of the Jewish New Year falls on September 6-8. Several thousand Hasidic pilgrims have already arrived in Uman, Cherkasy region, to celebrate the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah in advance, as not everyone was able to attend the celebration last year due to intensified anti-epidemic measures. In total, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine expects the arrival of more than 20,000 believers this year.
It is known that every autumn pilgrims go to Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashanah on the grave of their spiritual leader Nachman. He was born in the town of Medzhybizh (Khmelnytsky region now) in 1772 (5532 from the creation of the world according to the Jewish calendar). Then he led a nomadic lifestyle, visited different towns of Ukraine, mainly Medvedivka and Zlatopil, and spent the last eight years of his life in Braslav (now – Belarus). In 1808, Rabbi Nachman contracted tuberculosis and settled in Uman, where he was buried in 1810. Since then, the city has become a center of Hasidic worship, where they gather from all over the world every Jewish New Year.
TK-Style garment factory (Chernihiv), which is part of the group of companies Textile Contact, early June this year plans to complete the shipment of almost 10,000 jackets (7,000 for men and 2,900 for women) to the mounted police of Germany, the founder of the Textile Contact Group Oleksandr Sokolovsky has said.
“Now, if you meet mounted policemen in Germany, you can ask them to say hello to Ukraine! In December 2020, our TK-Style sewing factory managed to receive a very difficult order for sewing jackets for the German Mounted Police, and from the middle of March 2021 the team factories began to actively sew them off,” Sokolovsky wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him, each unit of the product is under the strictest control. Jackets are multi-piece, with complex technological processing and with a large variety of accessories.
“Since the order with an increased requirement for quality and manufacturing accuracy, during the entire time while it is being sewn, the customer’s representatives have been at the factory,” Sokolovsky said.
At the same time, he expressed the hope that “we will come in handy for our Ministry of Internal Affairs someday.”
The sewing factory TK-Style specializes in sewing outerwear, shoulder and waist garments, and employs more than 150 people.
Textile Contact, one of the largest trade and production groups on the Ukrainian light industry market, was founded in 1995.
Over the past two years, the prosecutor’s office has initiated 560 criminal cases on the fact of unlawful acts committed by law enforcement officers. And only six of them were brought an accusation.
Former Interior Minister of Ukraine Anatoliy Mohyliov said this at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Tuesday, noting that no one in the Interior Ministry today is watching the punishment of persons who have committed violation of the law.
“The complete absence of departmental control over violators within the system gives rise to permissiveness and undermines the foundations of the entire state. Remember the murder at the post of a policeman in 2015 – the suspects were detained, they were charged, after which … everyone was released! When persons involved in such a grave crime calmly walk down the street and work, including in government agencies, this is nonsense!” the ex-minister noted.
The ex-head of the Kyiv district police department, Denys Yaroslavsky, in turn, recalled the case with the service center of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine in Kharkiv region. According to him, in November 2020, as part of an ongoing investigation, journalists were able to obtain fake license plates of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, medical certificates of suitability for driving in the name of the head of the Kharkiv region police, Police General Valeriy Sokurenko, a certificate with a photo of SBU Chairman Ivan Bakanov and ex-Deputy Head of the President’s Office of Ukraine Serhiy Trofimov. Moreover, without the presence of the officials themselves. All this was made in the premises of the regional service center of the Interior Ministry in Kharkiv region. After reviewing the materials, Denys Yaroslavsky on the air in November 2020 transferred the relevant documents, testifying to numerous corruption actions in the system of service centers, to Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko. The latter promised to study and go into the matter.
According to journalist Ihor Lesev, after the broadcast of the materials of the journalistic investigation, a group of companies led by Serhiy Vakulenko (as a part of Vip-Expert LLC, Region-Expert LLC, Transkom-plus LLC) moved from the building of the service center of the Interior Ministry to another office. None of the responsible persons of the service centers or the main department of the National Police in Kharkiv region incurred any responsibility for the production of false medical certificates, fake registration numbers of vehicles and illegal transactions of its purchase and sale. At the same time, only the non-payment of the lease by Vakulenko’s group caused damage exceeding UAH 200,000 to the service centers in Kharkiv.
According to another participant in the press conference, ex-military prosecutor of Ukraine Ihor Serkov, while the suspects in the journalistic investigation have not been announced they are suspected of committing a crime with the election of an appropriate preventive measure, the violations mentioned in the film are abstract.
“If the employees of the service centers and the officials of the main department of the National Police in Kharkiv region associated with them, suspected of corruption and illegal actions, are not punished, there is no guarantee that this scheme will not find its continuation in the very near future. The main principle is lost – the inevitability of punishment of suspects,” Serkov said.
https://uprava.com.ua/
In the Novohrad-Volynsky region, law enforcement officers caught up and forcibly stopped a Nissan minibus, which contained 27 bags of amber, the police communication department of Zhytomyr region reports.
“At about 20:00 on 255 kilometer of the Kyiv-Chop highway, near Povchyno village, Novohrad-Volynsky district, the patrolmen forcibly stopped a Nissan car. Moving through the territory of Rivne region, the driver violated several traffic rules and did not stop at the request of the police, so they decided to catch up with him and check. As it turned out, the driver avoided talking to the police because of the cargo in the minibus,” a message on the police website says.
So, when inspecting the car, it turned out that the driver was transporting 27 bags of stones that looked like raw amber. However, in order to avoid administrative and criminal liability, the driver, 51-year-old resident of Chernivtsi region, offered the police EUR 1,000 of inappropriate benefits.
The discovered stones were seized and transferred for safekeeping at the State Directorate of the National Police in Zhytomyr region, an expert study was appointed.
The pretrial investigation is carried out in accordance with Article 240-1 (illegal extraction, sale, acquisition, transfer, shipment, transportation, processing of amber) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The police also documented the circumstances of improper benefits offer to the patrolmen. On this fact, criminal proceedings have been initiated under Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
