Interior Minister Kolokoltsev said that the number of police officers in Moscow had halved

“The situation is complex, but manageable,” Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev described the situation in the new Russian regions. On November 16, the minister spoke at the government hour in the Federation Council. He advised not to relax: anything can be expected from Ukraine, which means that security measures should be further strengthened. And at the same time he went over to the governors – for the reluctant introduction of sobering-up stations and the imposing attitude to the housing problems of the district police.

— The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation is taking additional security measures in Crimea, realizing that anything can be expected from Ukraine, — said Vladimir Kolokoltsev, speaking to the senators.

The Minister of the Interior called the situation in the new territories difficult, but manageable.

– In four new regions of Russia, 15 consolidated police units have been created. Coordination they took place in the regions of the North Caucasus. The policemen in the new territories conduct searches of vehicles, check citizens, and fight sabotage and reconnaissance groups. They do everything that depends on them. This work will continue,” Kolokoltsev assured.

For 15 minutes of his report, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs brought down an avalanche of numbers on the heads of the members of the Federation Council. The statistics alone of IT crimes with calls to citizens from spoof numbers is worth something. As the minister said, recently in the Saratov region, the police “covered” a gang led by a citizen of Ukraine. The victims managed to return 2.2 billion rubles. According to Kolokoltsev, most of the call centers specializing in financial scams are based on the territory of Nezalezhnaya.

Kolokoltsev positively assessed the dynamics of the situation on the roads. The number of accidents caused by drunk drivers has decreased by 20% over the year. The death toll in such accidents has decreased by a third. Although the total number of fans of driving under a degree is still a lot – more than 400 thousand, and every ninth got behind the wheel drunk again. But the good news is that the public is not asleep.

– Intolerance towards those who get behind the wheel in a state of intoxication is growing in society. 34,000 drunk drivers were detained according to reports of caring citizens, Kolokoltsov cited comforting statistics.

On the topic of drunkenness, the minister had to linger. Senator Alexander Varfolomeev was interested in the issue of sobering-up stations. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs admitted that not everything is going smoothly with them:

– In this area, as they say, the ice has broken, there are slight advances. Here it is necessary to understand that all citizens who have lost the ability to move after a good feast must be divided into those who need medical care and those who do not need it. This decision remains with the doctors, the task of the police is to detect a person in alcoholic prostration and call an ambulance for him. In 2021, 400,000 such citizens were identified. How many lives have been saved! But there are sobering stations only in 19 regions. This network needs to be developed, especially in regions with a difficult climate.

Valentina Matvienko promised to raise the problem of sobering-up stations within the framework of “regional weeks”.

– At home, the wife will figure it out with a rolling pin. But if a person is lying on the street, in the cold, this needs to be sorted out, ”said the speaker of the Federation Council.

In the migration sphere, the situation also seems to have begun to improve. According to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are now 6 million foreigners in Russia. Of these, only 9% are illegal, although there used to be one in three. But it’s too early to rejoice, warned Vladimir Kolokoltsev: due to the unstable situation in some CIS countries and the Middle East, the situation could change its vector to a negative one. Therefore, the police regularly have to arrange raids in places of traditional migrants’ base, in particular, in markets and hostels.

At the same time, the minister noted that there is an increase in extremist crimes in the country: more than 600 of them have been detected this year, which is a quarter more than a year earlier. Arms trafficking is also on the rise. A striking example is St. Petersburg, where during a raid, police found 200 firearms in an apartment, including assault rifles and machine guns.

At the same time, the conditions in which police officers have to work are far from ideal. As Kolokoltsev complained, only 200 apartments were allocated for district police officers from the municipal housing stock across the country. That is, only 6% of district police officers managed to solve the housing problem.

“Maybe the hands of the heads of the regions do not reach,” the minister suggested. – But we have an outflow of personnel, a shortage of 90 thousand people. In Moscow, the number of police officers has halved. It does not affect the criminal situation. So far it has no effect. But everything has its reasonable limit. It is not worth hoping that such dynamics will continue only thanks to high appeals.