Russian Crime on the Rise, Says Prosecutor General

July 29, 2016

Crime in Russia increased 3 percent in the first half of 2016, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman said, the RBC newspaper reported Friday.

In a semi-annual meeting of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Buksman said there had been 1.18 million recorded crimes in the first six months of 2016, while the number of economic crimes decreased 2.1 percent during that time.

In mid-June, the Interior Ministry reported a sharp rise in terrorist-related offenses in the first five months of 2016. There were 1,035 offenses recorded, compared to 664 over the same period in 2015.

These statistics represent a general growth trend in Russian crime, with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika reporting in April that crime in 2015 increased 9 percent, compared to 2014.

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the work of the Interior Ministry in March, saying they could not accomplish their “basic objective … Maybe this is the result of more objective statistics, which is good. But the fact that crime is growing is bad,” he said, RBC reported.

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