Ukraine Seeks Foreign Help on Police Reform

The Ukrainian police have barely changed since the days of the Soviet Union. “A Soviet legacy, our police is not about protecting people, it is about protecting the authorities from the people,” says Anton Gerashchenko, a senior member of the parliament. Policemen are also badly underpaid and poorly equipped. It’s common for patrol car cops to pay for gasoline out of their own pockets. Little wonder many of them order motorists to pay up if they don’t want to be reported for speeding or running a red light.

Gerashchenko is drafting legislation to kick-start police reform, working with a protégée of Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of nearby Georgia. Appointed first deputy interior minister of Georgia at the age of 27, Eka Zguladze oversaw much of the overhaul of the country’s police from 2006 to 2012. Now 36, she’s occupying the same post again—in Ukraine. Zguladze is one of roughly a dozen foreign nationals who’ve assumed senior posts in the government. An American runs the Ministry of Finance, while a Lithuanian heads the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. All have been issued Ukrainian passports by President Petro Poroshenko.