We continue publishing these “stories” — excerpts from our program in which we explain why it is needed through the examples of real people.
Today, we have a police officer: Roman Khabarov from Voronezh. He spent 20 years working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 14 of them as a local precinct officer.
He openly criticized the work of Interior Ministry officers in the Voronezh region and later resigned from the police. That criticism was held against him, and a criminal case was fabricated against him. Khabarov was arrested and spent five months in pretrial detention (SIZO, a Russian remand prison), followed by another five months under house arrest.
He is being defended by the human rights group Agora, and we trust them.
Listen to what Roman says about his work in the Interior Ministry and the situation of rank-and-file officers.
Our program is about
a) Cutting the absurdly bloated “National Security and Law Enforcement” section of the budget, which receives more than 2 trillion rubles a year.
b) Redirecting the remaining — and still enormous — funds first and foremost to the police officers who “work on the ground.” As it stands, the number of generals keeps growing, while the number of local precinct officers is constantly being cut.
The police’s frontline units — the “ground level” — bear the full burden of direct interaction with citizens, and 90% of all crimes fall within their area of responsibility.
That is where money, equipment, housing, and so on need to be invested.
Only then will we finally feel the connection between taxpayers’ money being spent and a reduction in crime.
P.S. A reminder that tomorrow, across the country, we will be holding our candidate nomination procedure. Here is information on how to take part.