Members of the newly created special police team KORD take part in a demonstration as part of a ceremony to commemorate finishing their training course at a base outside Kiev, Ukraine, May 6, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Reuters: The launch of Ukraine's new police patrol force last year sparked an internet craze of citizens posting selfies with newly recruited officers.
Their popularity stemmed not from their uniforms, body cameras and tablets, but the fact they did not demand bribes.
The most visibly successful reform to have emerged from the pro-European Maidan protests in 2014 is now under threat, serving and former law enforcement officials say, accusing vested interests of seeking to obstruct and discredit the force.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, a lawyer by training who rose through patrol police ranks to become Chief of Staff of the National Police, quit in March, "exhausted" by the pushback against change, he told Reuters in his first media interview since.
The experience he described shows how fragile Ukraine's progress in transforming itself into a Western-facing free market democracy could prove to be.
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Update: Ukraine's Western-style police starts working in Sumy (Ukraine Today)
WNU Editor: Being one who has been shaken down by Ukraine police officers before (traffic violation) .... I (like most Ukrainians) do not have much respect for the force. I have always doubted that these reforms would succeed .... the culture is deep, and it is not only limited to the police force. But someone had to start somewhere, and so for this reason alone I support these reforms.
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