"GORKY PARK" WRIT LARGE.

Yuri Skuratov, confirmed this week as Russia’s new Prosecutor General, has his work cut out for him. Statistics released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Justice show that crime in the first nine months of 1995 has increased by 10 percent in comparison to last year. (5) That translates into 2.08 million reported crimes, of which 37 percent remain unsolved, and includes about 24,000 murders and 59,000 drug-related incidents. In addition, police are grappling with an average 20,000 reported robberies each month.

The city and region of Moscow, together with Saint Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk krai, had the highest rates of crimes committed with firearms, according to Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev. He said also that the number of police officers killed or wounded in the line of duty is on the upswing, with 186 such deaths during the same period versus 183 for all of 1994. (6) In Kovalev’s words, the situation has been become "dramatic," all the more so since there are too few policemen to go around. While the Federal Program to Strengthen the Fight Against Crime recommends devoting five trillion rubles to police work, the money cannot be found.

Volsky: Punish Military for Roshni-Chu Bombing.