OPINION: Too Many Fires to Put Out

Across Ukraine, June has brought with it high temperatures, but the spate of fires in apartment buildings is not directly connected with the heat. The cause is the misuse of car batteries to power domestic appliances during the long and frequent power outages resulting from Russia’s attack on energy infrastructure.   

People who can afford them, buy mini-generators to help cope without main electricity,  but others connect car batteries to their apartment’s electrical system.

Several of these DIY-power systems have exploded while being charged, causing serious conflagrations, but other fires with a different origin have become a regular occurrence. They tend to happen at night in parked cars and invariably the vehicles belong to either military personnel or military units.

Having noticed this pattern, the police and security services immediately set up an investigation and the first people arrested for setting fire to cars were local teenagers aged 13-14. It turns out, the Russian special services are now offering Ukrainian teenagers "some extra money" in exchange for acts of arson.

The Russian services first monitor the teenagers’ activity on social media and then approach likely candidates, offering them between $100 and $300 to leave anti-Ukrainian graffiti on the walls of buildings.

The teenagers are expected to send pictures of their “handiwork” to their Russian clients who, if satisfied, then ask the teenagers to set fire to Ukrainian military vehicles for a much larger sum.

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Russian handlers tell the teenagers that even if they are caught no one will prosecute them because they are minors. What the Russian handlers do not explain is that criminal acts of this type are classified as terrorism, and, in Ukraine, the age of criminal responsibility for acts of terrorism begins at fourteen.

Recently, in Kyiv, after setting fire to a serviceman’s car, a mother and her 14-year-old son were detained. They had made the journey to the capital from Chernihiv regions, north of Kyiv, especially to commit arson. The mother explained that they had large debts and had no other way to pay them off.

Russian special services have sufficient human resources to develop projects of this type with minors without weakening their attempts to influence Ukrainian adults.

There are thousands of Russian bots, planted in Ukrainian chats designed to create and maintain panic about the war and to persuade Ukrainian citizens to evade conscription.

While it would be foolish to assume that resistance to mobilization is solely a result of Russian interference, the increase in attacks on military registration and enlistment office employees indicates that a targeted fight against the Ukrainian system of military mobilization has evolved, with enlistment office employees facing attacks not only in the course of their official duties but also on their way home from work. 

This has prompted Ukraine’s parliament to vote for a law on the organization of a special military police which will have the same structure as the regular police but be engaged in helping military registration and enlistment office employees and searching for draft dodgers.

These military police officers will have more invasive powers than ordinary police, allowing them to enter the private homes of Ukrainian citizens without a court order. They will also have the right to stop and search cars and, of course, check the documents of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.

According to the new law, the number of military police personnel must not exceed one and a half percent of the total number of Ukrainian armed forces personnel. That could mean a force numbering one hundred and fifty thousand.

The first question that arises about this law is: from where will the state recruit so many military police officers?

While the Parliament was preparing the law on the Military Police, the Cabinet of Ministers signed a decree stating that, from now on, the regular police can reserve no more than 50 percent of its personnel.  While crime rates fell at the start of the war, recent indications are that Ukraine’s criminal world is alive and kicking and requires plenty of policing.

Last week, saw the arrest of racketeers in Cherkassy. They had chosen their victims from among the families of killed servicemen. By intimidation and blackmail, the criminals tried to take the money that the family had received in compensation for the death (a one-time payment is 15 million hryvnias – about $370,000).

In addition to the money, the criminals demanded that members of this family officially recognize one of their accomplices as the illegitimate son of the deceased soldier. This would allow the accomplice to claim state financial assistance in the future.

With this type of crime on the increase and Ukrainian youth being tempted to commit acts of treachery to earn money, the police have their work cut out for them. 

Will the teenagers who are setting fire to Ukrainian military vehicles, become “professional” criminals in the future? The chances of this happening must be greater if they are not apprehended and dealt with appropriately because too many ordinary police officers and investigators have been sent to the front.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.