Page 6 - Empowerment and Protection - Ukraine Chapter

elderly Simferopol respondent speaks on nationalist and generational tensions between the communist legacy of Russia and Ukrainian identity.
Police impunity
Political violence was perceived as a threat in both Kyiv and Simferopol. Kyiv respondents noted police violence against protestors in the early days of
the Euromaidan protests. Anatoliy, a journalist in his fourties noted, “Among the new things is that the cops appear to have started assaulting people who go to the Maidan wearing EU arm bands – I haven't got it conirmed yet, but I read it in social networks.d I have friends and acquaintances, who saw that they had been followed at night or in the morning when leaving Maidan by two or three people. When walking on the Maidan there is always a danger that the riot police will capture you and throw you in jail.”
Overall, police brutality or harassment represented a common cause of insecurity reported by respondents, with young males being the most affected population. Dima, a 29-year-old mobile coffee shop vendor in the Sviatoshyn district of Kyiv, provided the following anecdote: “We got into trouble with police once. Drunk police dressed in civilian clothes. They were bullying some boys in a shop, and it ended up in a brawl. The next day they came in uniform, took the boys to the police station and beat them up severely. No one ever answered for this. The parents even had to pay money to the police for the boys to be released.”
Many respondents had stories of police corruption. Andrei in Simferopol recounted the story of a neighbour and his wife suffering armed robbery, followed by abusive police taking advantage of
the situation: “One [of the robbers] was shot dead in the crossire. The rest left with the money. No one was found, but the cops pulled out a very handsome amount of money from this guy. We too have a similar story. Someone robbed the storage facility. The cops started pumping me for money under the pretext that they were following [the robbers]: ‘give us money or else we will run out of gasoline’. Never count on anyone or go anywhere [for help] – just don’t let it happen to you. You won’t be able to call either the police or the hospital – they are all tied up together.”
d At the time of writing there had been plentiful reports of such behavior in local media including material evidence.
”You won’t be able to call either the police or the hospital – they are all tied up together.”
Street violence
Violent assaults, robbery, and hooliganism or anti- social behaviour were the most commonly cited cause of insecurity among surveyed residents in Kyiv, particularly for young men, but also for some women and elderly respondents. According to Volodymyr, a storage facility manager supervising young workers in Kyiv, “If you don’t get injured in an unlit subway, you may run into some hopnyks [thugs]. The young supermarket workers get in trouble often after seeing off their girlfriends on unlit city streets.” According to Halyna, a municipal employee in Kyiv, “There have been several cases of beatings on the streets, robberies with beatings, and thefts. I have been robbed myself, and friends are often confronted with violence and robbery
at ATMs. This is very much a characteristic of our part of the city, the crime rate is high.” Interviewees often associated street crime with social others, referring to hopnyks or thugs described as violent, unruly, and intoxicated members of the ‘underclass’. Marginally, in Kyiv an ethnic other – such as Asian migrants – also appeared as a source of threat in public imagination.
In Simferopole, 40-year-old businessman Andrei described a broader sense of insecurity: “After dark, your life and health may be in danger anywhere: beatings, murders, practically in all parts of the city, though especially in the old city, Zalesskaya, and the public housing estates. Car accidents are an issue too, but this is peanuts [in comparison to] the lawlessness. If you are doing business in the city and if someone knows that you’ve got some money – be ready. Usually, they rob you irst, and then the police come to collect what is left.”
Trafic and infrastructure
Trafic accidents and unsafe transport were the second most frequently cited cause of insecurity in Kyiv. Ihor, an academic in his mid-40s in Kyiv, said, “You can get hit by cars, as drivers often do not follow the rules, particularly at crosswalks. Drivers just don’t pay attention to people.” The issue of trafic safety had a strong social justice connotation, as the media had reported multiple cases of
e A smaller sample of interviews was done in Simferopol and as such represent more anecdotal information than the broader sample in Kyiv.
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