Russia's police force is in crisis, with officers are quitting to become taxi-drivers and couriers.

Russia has one of the largest police forces in the world, employing over 900,000 officers to serve a population of 146 million, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. It has nearly 630 officers per 100,000 people - more than double the US or the UK.

But in August, Interior Ministry Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev said the country had a “critical” shortage of police officers, which could affect crime rates.

Police officers across the country have been struggling with poor wages, stress and corruption which leads to a massive drop in police numbers - and many of those leaving are experienced officers.

After the start of the invasion of Ukraine, some officers wete initially convinced to stay in the force. Russian police officers are exempt from being called up for military duty, so some officers who were on the verge of resigning when Russia invaded Ukraine told us they kept their jobs to avoid fighting.

“Either you sat tight, or you left and got drafted,” explains one officer from Moscow. “I know there were managers who made a list of everyone who’d threatened to quit and passed it straight to the [army] recruiters. Everyone was pretty scared.”

But as the war rumbles on, police numbers are dwindling. The force cannot fill existing gaps - let alone recruit the 40,000 extra personnel that the Interior Ministry says is needed in Donetsk and Luhansk, areas of Ukraine that Russia partly occupies.

  • anteaters@feddit.deEnglish
    393·
    9 months ago

    Police officers across the country have been struggling with poor wages, stress and corruption

    Beating their compatriots into submission to send them to their deaths in a war of attrition and hate is completely fine for them as long as they get paid - and don’t have to suffer themselves.

  • avater@lemmy.worldEnglish
    143·
    9 months ago

    yeah I’m gonna be honest here, I think I don’t give a fuck about the feelings or the wellbeing of this facists. They are nothing than the braindead henchmen of the kreml…

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    9 months ago

    To help discourage resignations, former police are placed at the top of the conscription lists for the Ukraine invasion.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    92·
    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Vera Pekhteleva had been stabbed multiple times, beaten and strangled with an iron cord by her ex-boyfriend in an attack that lasted three-and-a-half hours.

    Russia has one of the largest police forces in the world, employing over 900,000 officers to serve a population of 146 million, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

    And according to several BBC sources, including two sergeants and one major, the Interior Ministry carried out a purge of officers who were linked to the opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, who has been held in a remote penal colony since 2021.

    One source said the Moscow Federal Security Service compiled a list of Navalny supporters based on a hacked database of email addresses.

    The force cannot fill existing gaps - let alone recruit the 40,000 extra personnel that the Interior Ministry says is needed in Donetsk and Luhansk, areas of Ukraine that Russia partly occupies.

    Interior Ministry officials from the three Russian cities of Tomsk, Yekaterinburg and Yaroslavl claim they now spend most of their time investigating and revising “endless charges against people discrediting the army”.

    The original article contains 1,239 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!