May 25, 2025: Russia has more than twice as many police per million population than the United States. Even when these police forces are at full strength, their numbers are often inadequate to handle many criminal activities that ravage Russian society. Russian leader Vladimir Putin made the situation worse in 2022 when he ordered the invasion of Ukraine. He expected a quick victory. When that did not happen, he found himself and Russia stuck in what turned out to be an unwinnable war. By 2025 Russia had run out of military manpower and was hiring North Korean and other mercenaries to hold the line in Ukraine.

In the scramble to keep the military up to strength, Putin ordered the army to grab anyone they could to replace casualties in Ukraine. Even a few policemen were taken. This policy caused a nationwide labor shortage and led to explosive growth in criminal activity. This was driven by returning war veterans. Russia had emptied its prisons to fill the ranks. The criminals who survived Ukraine returned to Russia free men and returned to criminal activity they were jailed for. Veterans in general felt entitled to take what they wanted and ignored the police.

This growing crime wave overwhelmed the security forces and that led to many police quitting. Many of those leaving did so before they were eligible for a pension. These former cops found they could obtain safer and better paid work in the private security sector. With crime increasing and police numbers declining, many localities, especially in rural areas where the police shortages were worst, to improvise. This meant local militias or vigilante groups. Those accused of crime were either beaten or executed on the spot.

The government had some reserves, in particular over 300,000 armed men of the Russian Guard. This organization is stationed throughout Russia to provide riot or crowd control, Special Weapons and Tactics or SWAT teams and increased security for government facilities or activities. The only other armed reserves are the 220,000 federal prison guards and the 50,000 men of the Federal Protective service guard senior officials and their families. While the Russian Guard can provide a few thousand men for emergencies, they are not a long-term solution.

The chaos continues and local governments are tolerating the vigilantes because there is no alternative. This renders another Putin innovation useless. As Putin sought to shut down protests and silence those who opposed his war in Ukraine, sacrificed the legal system. Putin backed legal reforms in the early 1990s that gave Russia its first modern legal system complete with competent judges and abundant courts throughout the country. As Putin’s war in Ukraine stumbled from one mishap to another disaster, the Russian leader sought a solution.

Putin came up with a long list of remedies for opponents to his war and their compelling reasons why the Ukraine operations were illegal and unjust. Putin is doing this by turning the Russian legal system into a tool for suppressing public protests and silencing notable individual dissenters. He also managed to isolate Russian judges who opposed Putin’s efforts to silence opponents.

Putin has succeeded in making it nearly impossible for Russians to obtain trial by jury. Putin also has protestors and dissenters tried in courts far from their home. This prevents anyone from showing up at the trial to support the defendant.

Putin has managed to get many cases moved from courts to military tribunals, where the defendants are regularly convicted. Putin has restricted legal appeals and limited lawyers from obtaining evidence needed to appeal a sentence. Putin has arranged for more trials to take place in secret, where the accused are nearly always convicted and sent off to a labor camp. Putin used many of these new laws and methods to thwart the tendency of Russian courts to free men accused of avoiding military service.

Putin established a force of legal vigilantes that would seize suspects and put them in prison or, more likely, an army unit headed for Ukraine. That was seen as a death sentence and many of these involuntary soldiers deserted, often with their weapons and sometimes after shooting their officers. There were not enough civil or military police to catch these outlaw soldiers. Once more local vigilantes did their work.

All this makes it even more difficult to rebuild depleted police forces. Russia has found that bringing war to Ukraine eventually brought lawlessness and chaos to Russia.