What did a week of violence reveal in Ukraine in May 2020?
A look back at reports of police abuse, a lawmaker's death and a mass shooting in the days before 27 May 2020.
What was Ukraine reading about in the days leading up to 27 May 2020? The reports from that stretch were dominated by violence and by questions about public safety and the conduct of state officials.
On 21 May 2020, reports said a local resident in Zhytomyr Oblast had killed seven people after a conflict. The following day, international reports described the incident as a drunken quarrel during a fishing trip and said the gunman was arrested afterwards.
On 23 May 2020, the Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that independent member of the Verkhovna Rada Valeriy Davydenko had been found dead in his office in Kyiv with a gunshot wound to the head. Reports the same day said he had been found shot.
The same date brought a further report that stood apart for what it said about law enforcement itself. In Kaharlyk, in Kyiv Oblast, police officers were reported to have beaten two people at a station and to have raped a woman several times. For readers watching Ukraine's public institutions, an allegation of that kind, involving officers inside a police station, raised the question of how the police are held to account.
Beyond Ukraine's borders
Elsewhere, other stories were shaping the international agenda. On 21 May 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungarian authorities had circumvented EU law by holding Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers in unlawful detention at a camp near the Serbian border. On 26 May 2020, the United States Africa Command accused Russia of deploying fighter jets to eastern Libya to provide air support to Russian mercenaries allied to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who was locked in a civil war with the UN-recognised Government of National Accord.
Why it matters in retrospect
Looked at together, the Ukrainian reports from the week before 27 May 2020 concerned the use of firearms, the death of a sitting lawmaker and alleged abuse by police. Each is a distinct case, and the reports linked them to no common cause. Taken as a snapshot, though, they show the pressures on public trust in security institutions at that moment.
