Ukrainian police officers began working as taxi drivers at night

They use their cars to transport curfew violators

Ukrainian police officers and members of the Military Law Enforcement Service (VSP) have invented a new and quite profitable business. It brings every law enforcement officer a significant increase in salary and allowance. The other day, one of the capital’s district courts was hearing a case directly related to the atypical actions of a police officer.

A certain sergeant of the convoy service company of the Main Directorate of the National Police of Ukraine in the Kyiv region named Valeriy worked part-time as a taxi driver during the curfew in the capital. One night, a Ford Fusion driven by Valery was stopped in the center of Kyiv. Along with the patrol cops, as luck would have it, employees of the Kyiv Directorate of the Department of Internal Security (DIB) of the National Police of Ukraine also worked at the post. The latter quickly established that the careless police sergeant did not have the right to travel at night, because he had not received the appropriate pass. However, being an active police officer, Valery willingly provided paid services as a taxi driver. If in the regions it is customary to pay several hundred hryvnia for a trip around the city during curfew, then in the capital of Ukraine the established rate for one trip is 1000 UAH. (2678 Russian rubles).

At the time the car stopped, a resident of the Kyiv outskirts was in the Ford, who urgently needed to get home from a nightclub. Using the mobile application of one of the taxi services, she called a car, which was driven by a part-time police officer.

Caught in the act, Valery did his best to lie to the court in the hope of avoiding punishment. At first, the sergeant stated that it was not he who was driving the car, but his volunteer acquaintance. The policeman provided him with his own car for noble volunteer activities. That same volunteer did not hesitate to provide paid transportation for fellow travelers. The police officer’s lawyer referred to the taxi service’s response, according to which Valery does not have an employment relationship with her. Therefore, they say, the statement that during the curfew Valery provided passenger transportation services is nothing more than an assumption.

The Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv, after studying the positions of the parties, came to the conclusion that Valery actually violated the restrictions on part-time work and combination with other types of activities.

On Ukrainian-language social networks you can read a lot of similar stories about illegal earnings of cops. Sometimes ungrateful curfew violators still complain to the DVB about the greed of the night cab drivers – the police. However, in most cases, as practice shows, police-stealers are successfully taken out of harm’s way by their superiors.

However, due to similar unseemly actions of its representatives, the Military Law Enforcement Service may be dealt with much harsher. American curators carefully monitor the progress of court hearings on military and near-war topics in Ukraine, and disputes on social networks. Based on their conclusions, the country’s top leadership was asked to abolish the VSP and create in its place an analogue of the Military Police, that is, the Military Police of Ukraine. The new law enforcement agency, it seems, will be supervised by the United States, and its tasks will go far beyond the trivial suppression of offenses committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other people in military uniform.