What do you do when your police force is under the cosh and you could use some good publicity? Do you ramp up the numbers of people patrolling the streets, do you fire those that are too long in the tooth or do you hire good-looking people to help your public profile?

If you’re the Ukrainian police you do all three, although it is the last of those changes that seems to be garnering the most attention. With a history rooted deeply in corruption and ineptitude the overhaul has seen the uniform changed, trainers from overseas hired and a bevy of younger, more ‘easy on the eye’ officers sent out and about.

Social media in Kiev (spelt Kyiv in Ukraine itself) has been abuzz with this below from the BBC:

The new force started patrolling the streets of the Ukrainian capital over the weekend and since then they’ve been a big hit on social media, with many people sharing photos taken with the new recruits. Many of the selfies were being posted on Facebook pages…And the hashtag #KyivPolice has been used more than 3,500 times on Twitter in the past week….

“A feast for the eyes. All the traffic was staring at and waving to #kyivpolice, and we almost missed the green lights,” said journalist Oksana Denysova, who posted a picture of two police cars. But she ended her post with a note of caution: “Do not let us down, darlings.”

Well that’s not patronising at all Oksana, I’m sure they will do their very best.

Stomach in, chest out – take notice SAPS.

[source:bbc]