Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 29 – Murders in Russia rose by four percent in 2022 compared to the number of such crimes the year earlier; and that increase is accelerating as the war in Ukraine has “legitimized force” in the eyes of the population, according to now independent sociologist Isaknder Yasaveyev.
The figures for the first two months of 2023 show, he says, an increase of 14 percent over the same period a year earlier, which included the last two months before Vladimir Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine (currenttime.tv/a/rise-in-crime-during-the-war/32380374.html).
These figures for murders likely understate the problem the war in Ukraine is causing. On the one hand, even though it would seem improbable, Russian police do not count all murders lest they look bad. And on the other, murders are only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger ballooning of violence criminal and otherwise, much of which the police do not count at all (svoboda.org/a/krugom-vragi-rost-nasiliya-v-rossii-v-voennoe-vremya/32384088.html).
If the Russian state and society address this problem by focusing on the underlying social and economic problems behind such violence, this trend can be reduced or even reversed. But if they don’t and believe they can solve it by coercion alone, it is entirely likely that the amount of violence in Russia will continue to mushroom, Yasaveyev says.
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