Expanded meeting of the Interior Ministry Board

The meeting agenda focused on the performance of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation and its agencies in 2025 and their priorities for 2026.

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The President's remarks at the meeting of the Interior Ministry Board

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Kolokoltsev, comrades,

During our expanded meeting today, we will review your performance in 2025 and discuss ways to improve the efficiency of Interior Ministry bodies in such key, high-priority areas as combating crime, maintaining public order, ensuring road safety, preventing illegal migration, and several other areas.

Overall, objective data shows that you achieved positive results last year. In particular, the crime rate has decreased in all federal districts and 80 regions of the Russian Federation. The number of repeat offences has also decreased.

Public order was maintained at a high level during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, as well as such events as the Arctic: Territory of Dialogue international forum, the Russia-Islamic World International Economic Forum, and other large-scale events. I know how much work this involved, and I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who organised and carried it out at such a high level.

I would like to mention the following priorities of the Interior Ministry for this year.

First of all, you must build up efforts to solve crimes, primarily serious and extremely serious offences against the person and property crimes. I would like to emphasise that, regrettably, the number of juvenile crimes increased in 2025, for the first time in years. At the same time, the share of serious and extremely serious crimes in that segment exceeded 40 percent. This situation calls for an appropriate and prompt response.

Practice shows that young people are often deliberately involved in criminal activities and recruited into criminal groups. Nearly half of teenagers - 45 percent - have committed crimes as members of organised criminal groups. The criminals who are using teenagers for their own purposes must be identified and held accountable as soon as possible.

To be continued.