“Drunk Driver Going at High Speed”: Former Kyiv Traffic Police Chief Detained

According to activists, the driver refused to show documents to patrol officers, tried to leave the scene and claimed that his wife had been behind the wheel.

Former head of the State Automobile Inspection of Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs, Oleksandr Yershov, has been detained in Kyiv. This was reported by activists of the PITBULL KIEV car community in the city of Kyiv.

At night on January 18, PITBULL KIEV activists claim they found Yershov drunk behind the wheel in the Holosiivskyi district of the capital.

“Activists’ attention was drawn to a group of people outside one of the night venues who, judging by visible signs, were heavily intoxicated. After watching them for a short time, the guys saw one of the group members say goodbye to his colleagues and head toward the parking lot. Within seconds the man got behind the wheel of a Range Rover Evoque, and it later turned out that this was Oleksandr Yershov,” the activists said.

According to them, they immediately called the police, reporting that a driver with obvious signs of intoxication had got behind the wheel and was driving at high speed through the city.

“The car was being driven in a clearly inadequate manner; in places the speed exceeded 100 km/h in a residential area and created more than one emergency situation,” the PITBULL KIEV activists claim.

The Range Rover stopped a few meters from the entrance to a gated cottage town. The driver, according to the activists, got out, walked toward them and began asking, “What’s going on? Who are you? What are you doing here?” Within a few minutes, two patrol police crews arrived.

According to the activists, the driver refused to provide documents to the patrol officers and tried “by all means to leave the scene, shouting that he was not driving, his wife was.” Then a woman ran up to the car and got into the driver’s seat. According to the activists, the driver tried to persuade his wife to say that she had been driving and had only supposedly walked home before the police arrived.

During the detention by patrol officers, as the activists report, the man resisted.

“At this time, his wife was walking around asking everyone not to film on cameras, saying that it was ‘wrong’ because he is a colonel. Next came the breathalyzer procedure and a medical examination, both of which he refused. The relevant materials, witness statements and a Google search made it clear to us that this is not just a ‘drunk and raging driver’ but a former head of Ukraine’s traffic police who resigned in 2015,” the activists said.

The police and Yershov himself have so far made no official public comment on the incident.

In April 2015, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov appointed Yershov acting head of the traffic police, and in May of that year dismissed him. Yershov submitted his resignation after an investigation by the “Schemes” programme, which said that the country’s chief traffic cop had lied in his declaration and concealed from oversight bodies an elite three-story mansion in Kyiv. “Schemes” also reported that Yershov leads a luxurious lifestyle and owns an elite car fleet, and that his daughter had vacationed in ten countries in six months.  

Yershov himself then confirmed that he had not declared a plot of land and a house in Kyiv belonging to his family. “Everything is according to the law, it belongs to my wife,” said the acting head of the traffic police. Yershov also said that, as indicated in the declaration, his family has only one car, and that “his daughters lead their own lives.” “It’s their business, I don’t interfere,” Yershov explained.