Patrol officers in Ukraine will be equipped with automatic weapons — Fatsievich
Platoon and company commanders already have automatic weapons, Fatsievich said. The National Police plans to equip every patrol crew with such weapons as well.
Oleksandr Fatsievich, Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine and Acting Head of the Patrol Police Department, shared this information in an interview with Babel, responding to a question about the lack of automatic weapons among patrol officers.
“Platoon commanders and company commanders have automatic weapons. And patrol officers will have them per crew; we will make this happen. Every patrol officer must be able to operate both a pistol and an automatic rifle. As of now, automatic weapons are also available to the rapid response patrol unit,” he said.
Responding to a question about whether there will now be an automatic rifle for one person in each patrol car, Fatsievich said that (this will be done – ed.) after appropriate training, “when we all understand that they will be able to use them.”
The Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine recalled the words of Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko that patrol officers will now take turns living at training grounds, and noted that this will be a systematic process.
“On the minister’s orders, the First and Second Corps of the National Guard will assist us with their instructors. This will involve psychological training focused on readiness for precisely such situations: psychological obstacle courses, use of weapons, and tactical elements. This should help them learn to act in stressful situations and make quick decisions,” explained the head of the Ukrainian patrol police.
He stated that patrol officers will attend training for two weeks and live under military conditions.
“We will also involve our ‘Lut’ unit with our training grounds and our instructors, but this will be more of a police component. There, they will learn to counter the same shooter; as I said, this course is already being prepared,” Fatsievich informed.
The Deputy Head of the National Police noted that the police training will also last another two weeks.
“These will be police instructors. You are correct in saying that the use of weapons by combat units and the use of weapons by police officers are very different. Moving forward, our task is to maintain the acquired skills on a monthly basis—one full day per month,” said the head of the Patrol Police Department.
In Kyiv, a teenager was detained after fleeing from the police while intoxicated in someone else’s car—video.
It was also reported that the judge who killed a National Guard soldier while drunk is still receiving his salary.
