Many of 80,000 Russian Policemen who Left Their Positions in 2025 Joining Private Security Companies, Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 22 – That the Russian police force has been losing officers rapidly because of low pay, poor working conditions and problematic management has long been widely recognized (jamestown.org/war-against-ukraine-leaving-russian-police-state-without-enough-police/).

            But despite the resignation of some 80,000 officers last year, relatively little attention has gone to what new jobs they are taking, except for the widespread assumption that many of them are using their skills in the Russian army in Ukraine given how much higher pay there is (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/low-pay-attitudes-of-commanders-why.html).

            Now, however, independent Moscow expert Pashkin says that a large share of police who have quite are instead joining private security companies where they can do many of the same jobs they were doing but for higher pay and better benefits and without the risks of police work (svpressa.ru/society/article/503493/).

            What they are not doing, at least not in large numbers, is joining criminal gangs, he says. His interlocutors say that Russian gangsters are very strict about that now. “They don’t hire police officers because it is supposedly considered bad manners” for any gang leader to employ those who used to work against them.  

             That represents yet another privatization of state functions and the state monopoly on violence, a trend that could in the future prove very dangerous if the numbers of police in Russia continue to fall relative to the number of private firms who are armed and might under certain circumstances challenge them.