In addition to international pariah status and economic downturn, Russia is apparently dealing with another consequence of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022: increased violence.
According to data from the General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia, released by the Travmpunkt lawyers’ association at the end of March, the number of murders and attempts rose for the first time in the country in 20 years.
According to the report, whose content was published by the Russian newspaper Kommersant, in 2002, 32,265 cases of murder and attempted murder were registered in Russia. The numbers decreased year by year, until in 2022 an increase was registered: there were 7,628 cases of murder and attempted murder, compared to 7,332 in 2021, a variation of 4%.
The Russian Interior Ministry disagrees with the numbers and claims that violence in the country has decreased in the past year.
Travmpunkt cited that this rise in homicides may be related to increased alcohol consumption among the general population and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among soldiers who fought in the Ukrainian war – two potentially related factors.
The authors of the study cited data from Rosalkogolregulirovanie, the Russian federal agency that regulates the alcohol market in the country, which showed that retail sales of alcoholic beverages with a content greater than 9% grew by 6.8% in Russia in 2022.
Between 70 and 80 percent of murders in the country are committed by drunk people, and increased alcohol consumption is common among ex-combatants and civilians suffering from PTSD, researchers said.
Although violence has increased in several Russian regions, it has increased especially in those located close to the border with Ukraine: in Belgorod, the number of murders and attempts practically doubled, from 52 in 2021 to 102 in 2022, and in the Kursk region , the records went from 58 to 89.
The first year of the war in Ukraine also coincided with high rates of domestic violence: lawyer Anastasia Sherdakova, co-author of the report, mentioned that a call center recorded in 2022 a 5% increase in the number of women contacting its hotline.
Another apparent relationship between the conflict and the rise in Russian crime was pointed out by former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, a critic of Vladimir Putin: she mentioned that the Russian police have been dedicating their time “to other things” instead of combating violence in the country. country.
Among the “other things” suggested by Sobchak are new laws aimed at increasing state persecution of Putin critics, such as one that stipulated sentences of up to 15 years for anyone spreading “fake news” about the Russian military.
All, of course, within the particular definition of the Kremlin – which does not allow the invasion of Ukraine to be called a war, only a “special military operation”.
In July last year, a 17-year-old girl was killed by her ex-boyfriend in the city of Novosibirsk. “The student’s mother had warned the police three times that the assailant had threatened to kill her daughter,” Sobchak said. “I am so angry. God, give me strength… it’s a disgrace.”
Researchers warned, however, that it is necessary to wait for the next few years to gauge a stable trend in the direct and indirect effects of the war in Ukraine on Russian crime.
“If there is an increase [duradouro] in criminality, it means that there are social prerequisites, but we cannot say what they are now,” lawyer and former investigator Igor Markelov told Kommersant.
In November, the Russian news website RBC had already reported that crimes involving firearms increased by almost 30% in Russia between January and October 2022 compared to the same period in the previous year. In the Kursk and Belgorod regions, the largest variations were recorded, of 675% and 213%, respectively.
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