At his own request: the head of the Moscow traffic police Viktor Kovalenko resigned

On Friday, the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow officially announced the imminent resignation of the head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the capital, Viktor Kovalenko, who actually led the department for more than five years.

“The press service of the State Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Moscow confirms that the head of the UGIBDD of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Moscow, Police Major-General V.V. Kovalenko filed a resignation report at his own request, "- reported in the department.

According to the radio station Govorit Moskva, which first reported on April 2 about the upcoming resignation of Kovalenko, this issue was discussed that day at a meeting of the management of the traffic police of Russia. The source of the radio station said that from April 3, Kovalenko will go on vacation, after which he will retire voluntarily.

In the metropolitan police, this information has not been commented on until today, but in the central office of the department, the corresponding question about the fate of Kovalenko was answered by RT, that no meeting of the leadership of the department, where the fate of the major general was allegedly decided, was held.

“We do not have any other information,” they added to the traffic police of Russia.

Viktor Kovalenko, then still in the rank of colonel, officially headed the Moscow State Traffic Safety Inspectorate on March 19, 2015. However, in fact, he headed from January 2014, when the previous head of the State Traffic Inspectorate, Alexander Ilyin, as well as Kovalenko himself now, went on vacation, followed by dismissal and retirement.

The current resignation of Kovalenko followed almost immediately after a serious incident on Mozhayskoye highway, when on March 25 his subordinates allowed Muslim Dzhambekov, a resident of Chechnya, to leave the place of the fatal accident.

Despite the efforts of the police, they managed to detain the offender after the appeal of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who promised to find the fugitive. After that, the fugitive who managed to take refuge in his native republic immediately publicly repented and surrendered to the police.

The scandalous incident did not go unnoticed by Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, who on March 29 not only ordered the metropolitan police to dismiss one of the guilty inspectors, but also issued disciplinary punishments to a number of its leaders. According to the results of the service check, Kovalenko, as well as four of his subordinates, were warned about incomplete service compliance. Two more executives were severely reprimanded.

Peter Shkumatov, Coordinator of the Blue Buckets Community, in an interview with RT, noted that if one does not take into account Kovalenko’s own desire, he does not see a single “sane” reason for his resignation.

“In the case of the same Alexander Ilyin, a heap of problems really accumulated by the time he left, there were no strong scandals associated with him in the case of Kovalenko. Well, such incidents as on the Mozhaisk highway will be repeated, unfortunately, more than once. They do not depend on Kovalenko and everyone, including its leaders, understands this, ”said Peter Shkumatov, community coordinator of the Blue Buckets, to RT.

"In general, the era of Kovalenko was very good for the State Traffic Inspectorate of Moscow: there was a development, modern technologies were introduced," the expert added.

There were no “global complaints” against the head of the traffic police, the head of the independent trade union of Moscow police, Mikhail Pashkin, emphasizes. “It is possible that he has something with health, but everything looked normal, he was always smart,” the expert believes.

At the same time, he recalled the scandal in the Northern District of Moscow, which occurred several years ago, when it turned out that DPS officers had illegally deprived of the driving license of migrants from the CIS.

“As a rule, they did not appear in court. It turned out that they did not know at all that something had been drawn on them. That is, the employees stopped the Gazel to check the documents, rewrote the driver’s data, and six months later, for the sake of indicators, they filed a report on him for refusing to give up the medical counsel, and the case went to court. There are dozens of victims. We complained a lot, wrote to the CSS, but then nobody responded to that, ”said Pashkin.

Who to replace?

Viktor Kovalenko has five deputies, none of them, according to the official website of the department, have the prefix "first". Nevertheless, according to a TASS source, Alexey Diokin was appointed acting head of department, who was one of two employees who received a severe reprimand after the incident on Mozhaisk Highway.

Colonel Diokina is now 41 years old, he has two higher educations. He has been working in various positions in the State Traffic Police Inspectorate since 2000, and was appointed deputy head of the Moscow State Traffic Safety Inspectorate in May 2016.

The head of the Moscow State Traffic Inspectorate is appointed by the President of Russia. This process can take a lot of time. Kovalenko himself at one time led the department with the prefix of acting for more than a year.

Considering that formally the major general has just gone on vacation and will officially leave the post later, it is obvious that, given the particular importance of this position and the large range of tasks to be solved, the formal approval process of the new leader will be quite long.