Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said that Ukraine’s militia will formally cease to exist on November 7. However, it will take around six months for the new police to be fully functional.
In the former U.S.S.R. the word "militia" was used instead of the Western "police" to describe civilian law enforcement. Ukraine had its own reasons to rename the force when the reforms began. First, to distinguish the Ukrainian police from the "people's militia" that is functioning in the territories under control of the separatists in Donbas, according to earlier Avakov statements. Second, to separate the police from its past.
"On November 7 the militia will de jure cease to exist -- and across the country the police will de jure be operating. This is de jure, and de facto the transition process from old to new will last about six months. No one will automatically transfer to the police from the militia," Avakov wrote on Facebook.
First, the structure of the militia will change in accordance with the law about the new police. Then the staff will go through contests and interviews. There will be a "full recertification of the personnel," according to the minister.
"For 23 years of independence the militia was practically protecting the government from the people. Now it has to protect the people," said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister.
Frontline, a PBS investigative series, received an Emmy for The Battle for Ukraine, a documentary about Euromaidan and fighting in Donbas.
This rather impressive video of the Crimea blockade was uploaded to YouTube today (natural sound):
A five-minute video that documents the death of 45 Euromaidan activists on February 20, 2014, has been uploaded to YouTube. Although the video has been online since August, Oleksandra Matviychuk, the coordinator of the Euromaidan SOS initiative, shared it on her Facebook page recently, saying that those who made it had to go through gigabytes of photos and videos to create it.
"While the square on the screen is green -- the person is alive, when it’s red -- the person has been hit with a bullet," she wrote.
"This video should be rewatched periodically," Matviychuk added. "To be angrier, more effective and demanding, first of all, to oneself. To give up and succumb to lack of faith for us, people who were left alive, is an unjustified luxury."
The board of directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has approved a loan of up to $300 million for Ukraine to purchase natural gas in the European market to fill its storage for the upcoming winter, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
"The loan will strengthen Ukraine's energy security by supporting diversification of natural-gas suppliers and delivery routes," reads the bank’s statement.
The loan should stimulate reforms in Ukraine’s gas market, the bank emphasizes.