Russia: Mass departures from the police - overworked, demoralized and underpaid

Bewildered and frightened, residents called the police to report what sounded like an attack on a woman.

But nobody showed up.

The screaming continued, along with loud banging and calls for help.

Six more calls were made to the emergency response services, but the officers did not arrive.

The neighbors, now fearing the worst, decided to take matters into their own hands and broke into the apartment by breaking down the door.

But it was too late.

The screaming stopped.

The woman was dead.

 

Vera Pehteleva's ex-boyfriend stabbed her several times, beat her and strangled her with an iron cable, and the attack lasted for three and a half hours.

Police claimed there were no officers or patrol cars nearby at the time to respond to the call.

However, the five policemen were later found guilty of causing death by negligence and sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years of probation

The court said the sentences, which many felt were low, were appropriate because the police shortage was a "service-wide" problem.

Russia has one of the largest police services in the world.

It has more than 900,000 police officers serving 146 million people, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

There are almost 630 police officers per 100,000 people, twice as many as in the United States or Great Britain.

But in August, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, head of the Interior Ministry, said the country had a "critical" shortage of police officers, which could affect the crime rate.

 

This is partly due to Russia's vast geography and the lack of personnel who provide support to police officers in the field from the office.

But the most recent problems stem from a massive decline in the number of police officers, and many of those leaving are experienced, talented officers.

 

 

Many former Russian police officers have told the BBC they are leaving and opting for less stressful jobs that pay better.

"They didn't adjust the salary at all," says a former police officer from Rostov, in southeastern Russia.

"After inflation and new prices, it is no longer enough."

He quit his job to become a taxi driver.

His friend, who was also a policeman, is now a courier.

Both earn twice what they earned as police officers.

"I reached the rank of major, but the supermarket workers still earned more than me, and it's not exactly a dangerous job.

"Only an idiot would report to the police now," says the former policeman from Rostov.

The BBC has revealed that overstretched police forces are now refusing to open new cases, even after being reported.

"Everyone has ten days to study the applications, whether there are five or 50, so it is obvious that the quality of the work will decline," claims one detective from the Siberian region of Russia

"If there is a series of ten things they have to do - visit neighbors, cross-examine witnesses, go to the scene of the crime - they will only complete one or two and write down that it was 'not possible' to do the others

"Then they refuse to press charges and that's why there won't be an investigation," he says.

As the number of police officers decreases, the pressure on those who remain increases.

Former police officers told the BBC that this leads to corruption.

"Police officers extract confessions from people by beating them, pump up arrest rates, we see it all the time," says a police major from the Russian city of Tomsk.

“And it's only going to get worse. There will be falsification of evidence, deliberate beatings, there simply won't be enough time to investigate anything properly."

 

"You have a lead and you need to follow it? It's much easier to drag the first suspect to the station and beat him up, so he takes the blame."

Some police officers end up in prison for these crimes, which further thins the service.

That's what happened to Sergej, a former policeman who worked for the service for seven years, jailed for beating up a dealer

Sergei says he felt pressured to arrest the dealer and only hit him when he tried to swallow the drug to hide the evidence

He told the BBC that the police were so short of money that he himself had to pay for the basic means of operation.

"I used my car, I bought paper, toners and a printer, I used my computer, desk, chair, gasoline...

"I tiled the office myself, fixed everything."

A former police officer from central Russia says that the vacancies have been unfilled for a long time.

"We've been short of people for eternity. I got hired in 2015, and only two new people have joined our team in the last eight years, while 15 have left."

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

In that purge, longtime, experienced police officers were dismissed.

One source said Moscow's Federal Security Service compiled a list of Navalny's followers based on a hacked email database.

 

 

The number of police officers in Russia was decreasing even before the start of the war in Ukraine.

At first, the war convinced some policemen to stay in the service.

Russian police officers are exempt from military service.

 

That's why some who were on the verge of quitting their jobs when Russia invaded Ukraine, told the BBC, kept their jobs to avoid going to war.

 

"Either you sat in peace, or you left and they recruited you," explains one police officer from Moscow.

"I know there were managers who made a list of everyone who threatened to quit and sent it straight to military recruiters. Everyone was pretty scared."

But as the war dragged on, the number of police officers continued to dwindle.

The service cannot fill existing gaps, let alone recruit 40,000 more people, which the Interior Ministry says is needed in Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukrainian regions under partial Russian occupation.

Putin declared victory after holding so-called referendums in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine in September 2022.

But the Ukrainian government and its allies have called the vote rigged.

Russia predicts it will need 42,000 more police officers by 2026 if it occupies more territory.

Police officers are simply not allowed to have an opinion about war.

They are not even allowed to call it war.

"The cops have to keep their mouths shut," says one detective.

"We must not have personal views on 'special military operation' or we will be fired."

The BBC was also told that police officers are burning out due to the extra paperwork brought on by the war.

Interior Ministry officials from the three Russian cities of Tomsk, Yekaterinburg and Yaroslavl claim that they now spend most of their time investigating and reviewing "endless accusations against people who have discredited the military."

"People are constantly looking for an excuse to denounce someone," says the former major from Tomsk.

"There is no one in the station, everyone went to check on some grandmother who saw a curtain that looks like the Ukrainian flag."

"I can see where this is going," he says.

He adds that there is more emphasis on crimes against the state.

"In the future, more cases will fall under that category," he predicts.

"As for the real problems that affect ordinary people, such as kidnappings, robberies, rapes, murders, there will be no time for them to be investigated."