Bohdan Yaremenko
chairman of the board of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs
Vradiivka is a tiny, sleepy, infamous provincial township in the Mykolaiv region in the Southern Ukraine with some 9000 inhabitances. Nevertheless this town became broadly known and occupied for a couple of days all headlines of the Ukrainian media during the summer 2013.
A group of militia raped local woman and attempted to kill her in order to cover committed crime. The victim Iryna Krashkova survived but was hospitalized and put into intensive care. After coming back into conscience she identified two militia officers who attacked her.
This situation as well as early attempts of authorities to deny and to cover the crime immediately raised public awareness across Ukraine. In Vradiivka the crowd of angry natives attacked and vandalized the militia station. These events made it impossible for the government to continue the denial policy. A group of local militia officers was prosecuted; some commanding officers including the local prosecutor were fired.
Also the Vradiivka casus launched series of protests in the different parts of Ukraine where local authorities were trying to deny or even to hide their crimes against the average citizens. As it looks like right now the Vradiivka incident started the process which ended following year with the Revolution of Dignity and overthrow Government.
August 2016 brought Vradiivka back to the headlines.
In the village of Kryve Ozero some 10 km aside of Vradiivka a police patrol was sent to react to the emergency call about the domestic violence. Three officers entered the private household detained drunk hooligan, put handcuffs on him and beat the man to his death.
As the family of a killed man witnessed this situation it made impossible to hide or to deny it. The situation became public. An angry crowd circled the crime scene.
Although all police officers involved were detained soon for questioning after the incident villagers expressed their distrust to the local police and prosecutor’s office and even tried to lynch them.
In the contrast to the events that occurred back in 2013 this time the politicians in Kyiv as well as the central police command of Ukraine made it perfectly clear from the very beginning of the upholding events that they will guaranty this crime to be investigated properly and all guilty will be brought to the justice. Strong media and civil society reaction on these events will be an additional guarantee for this to happen.
Nevertheless the resent Vradiivka situation raised speculations over the quality of police reform and training in Ukraine which was previously considered one of the main positive changes that happened in the country after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
Also this reminds how fragile the social peace in Ukraine is because of inability of the political leaders to deliver the result and to keep their promises to fight corruption, to reform the highly ineffective administration system and thus to rebuild public trust.
But the picture will be incomplete without mentioning the ongoing Russian military aggression against Ukraine and Russia’s constant information provocations undermining peace and stability in Ukraine.
