Media: Russia Faced Serious Problem Due To Its War With Ukraine

The worst is yet to come though.

Statistics from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs have shown a sharp increase in organized crime. Banditry will grow as former criminals return from the front, experts predict.

In Russia, the number of crimes committed by organized crime groups in the first five months of this year has increased by 76% (up to 16.9 thousand) compared to the same period in pre-war 2021, according to statistics from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The number of such acts is growing with each new year of the war, writes the We Can Explain Telegram channel.

The judicial statistics also show growth: in 2021, 235 people were convicted under the articles “banditry, organization of illegal formations, gangs and criminal organizations or participation in them” (Articles 208 - 210.1 of the Criminal Code), and in 2023 already 334 people, 42% more. These articles appeared in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the mid-1990s during a surge in organized banditry.

The criminal and judicial chronicles of the Russian Federation are again regularly reporting on gang leaders. In the autumn of 2023, the leader of a group of killers, Aslan Gagiev, was sentenced to life imprisonment under articles on the creation of an organized crime group, and in June 2024, Moscow Region “authority” Oleg Medvedev (Shishkan) received a life sentence.

After the start of the war, the Ministry of Internal Affairs also began to record a surge in crimes involving weapons, and since December 2023, it has hidden these statistics. The “leaders” turned out to be border regions, where the number of robberies, murders and other crimes involving guns increased from 5 to 17 times.

“Illegal arms trafficking is simply monstrous,” retired police captain Nikolai Korolev told We Can Explain. “In Belgorod and Kursk, they now freely trade in weapons: anyone can buy a pistol, a machine gun, etc.” Those who return from the front are again forming gangs, says Korolev: “Nothing can be more terrible for them than war. They will go on fighting, in the same “units”.

The law-enforcers are increasingly “fitting” economic crimes under organized crime, earning themselves points, says lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov.

“However, if the state does not engage in the rehabilitation of those who fought, then there will be an increase in gangs, as was the case after each military campaign — Chechen, Afghan, and the Great Patriotic War,” the lawyer sums up.

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