No traitors or collaborators among police in Kyiv – police chief

KYIV. Aug 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Two dozen police officers in Kyiv were checked for possible cooperation with the occupiers, operational information was not confirmed, Chief of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kyiv Ivan Vyhovsky said.

"Traitors and collaborators have not been identified among the personnel of Kyiv police. Not a single one. This is according to our information, and according to internal security information, and according to the State Bureau of Investigations, and the SBU," Vyhovsky told Interfax-Ukraine.

He said: "Relevant checks were carried out in relation to 20 people, for whom there was operational information, but everyone was checked, including with the use of a polygraph – not a single fact was confirmed."

At the same time, Kyiv police chief said that some policemen of the capital in the first days of the war, frightened by the capture of the city, arbitrarily left their place of duty.

"At the beginning of the war, some Kyiv police officers did not arrive at the units at the place of service, in fact, they left the place of service without permission," he said.

According to Vyhovsky, this is about a small number of police officers. "In total, 87 police officers were fired who did not arrive at the duty station. If we take the entire staff, and the total staffing is 9,200, then this is less than 1%," he said.

The chief of the police head office said some of these police officers are women with small children. "And in such cases, we reacted with understanding – they defended their families. Some of them left Ukraine in the first days of the war. We gave them the opportunity to quit later on their own," Vyhovsky said.

"Some 76 police officers were dismissed under the disciplinary charter for self-removal from their duties. In general, we conducted an internal investigation into each, studied each situation in detail, because people living in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy regions work in Kyiv police. At the time of the outbreak of hostilities those who work according to the ‘day in two’ schedule were at their place of residence, they simply could not get to the place of service," Vyhovsky said.

He also said Kyiv police are recruiting police officers who have left the territories temporarily occupied by the enemy.

"All of them also undergo internal security checks, inspections, each of them also passes a polygraph. Some of them are not accepted for service, but this is a fairly small percentage – up to 5% of the total number of reports submitted," he said.

The chief of Kyiv police said that about 250 people have been transferred from other regions and have already been appointed to the staff of the capital’s police.