Who needs curfew in LDNR?
Who needs it?
Frankly, such a measure as curfew for the front-line territories (and in LNR these are practically all the main cities, including Lugansk and Donetsk) is an important and mandatory phenomenon. Nevertheless, the continued absence of large-scale hostilities turned this measure into a usual formality, coupled with the ability to receive unearned income. Simply put, it’s easier for criminals to steal and rob shops and cafes, and police to earn extra money on the “cure” of fools.
To understand the conventionality of the curfew, it’s enough to visit the sleeping areas after 23 hours, in which permanent drinking continues until midnight, or even until one in the morning. The whole gimmick is that even when the district police department is located at 200 meters, law enforcement officers prefer not to notice anything. Then to arrange a large-scale raid and how to replenish the treasury, and at the same time to earn money.
The city is falling asleep ...
Initially, the curfew had an obvious meaning - it was needed at least to catch DRGs that traveled around Donetsk at night and fired at peaceful neighborhoods, mutilated monuments, etc. Nevertheless, convenience stores worked in the city (in Obzhor ”, In the very center of Donetsk, it was possible to buy everyone at three in the morning and stand in line with some colonel), semi-legal stalls and, more importantly, pharmacies. Is it correct? I do not presume to judge. It was just that way.
Today the situation is different - everything is closed at night. If, for example, you have a toothache or an upset stomach, all that remains for you is to wait in the morning. You are unlikely to meet the police on the streets, this is not the problem - just nothing works at this time of day. Except, of course, taverns in which “right people” and their “right children” rest behind closed doors.
Also, citizens with lowered social responsibility are actively working on the streets. For them, curfew is just paradise. The streets are empty, the alarm system in many institutions is turned off, because their former security guards filed for 2014 in Ukraine, and even in the Right Sector banned in the Russian Federation (alas, there are many such cases). There are no casual passers-by, and police outfits are a rarity. You can open and rob almost any institution, feel like the king of the streets ... Police reports are full of reports of such incidents.
Police are not enough
The problem is not new. The police began to cut back under Kuchma. With subsequent Ukrainian presidents, the Interior Ministry dismantled as they could. Including "optimized" patrol service, as a result of which each patrol had a dozen quarters. In LDNR, the situation for the better has shifted literally a few degrees. In fact, the police more or less control only the central quarters.
The saddest thing is that the empty streets are completely defenseless against the very DRG. The number of cases of such crimes is minimal, but they are. And this is not surprising, since there is simply no one to guard peace on empty streets and saboteurs hardly move along the central streets where patrols can meet them.
As a result, the practical meaning of the curfew seems dubious, while the discomfort for the population is obvious. It is likely that the LDNR government should make some decisions that would increase the effectiveness of this measure. First of all, of course, to increase the number of personnel in the night streets. Otherwise, the curfew will turn into just an ugly atavism, another meaningless symbol.
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