Over 10,000 Interior Ministry veterans serve under contract

More than 10,000 Interior Ministry veterans continue to work in the Interior Ministry's core services under contract and over 30,000 more work on the voluntary basis, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said in a statement.

He was speaking Wednesday at the fourth selection conference of the Interior Ministry Agencies and Interior Ministry Troops Veterans' Organization, which brought together 356 delegates.

"The result of cooperation between the Interior Ministry and the veteran association has been the creation of a legal basis enabling senior officials to involve veterans in solving particular crimes and other crime prevention activity," Gryzlov said.

He pointed out that President Vladimir Putin, who had spoken about economic, and internal and external political threats in his state of the nation address, had stressed that it was necessary to rally around national tasks and values to confront them. "This consolidation is necessary for fighting poverty, for the spiritual recovery of society, for the reinforcement of Russia's role in the world," the minister said.

"The President spoke of the need to rally, of the linkage between the state and society. Our organization has a special role to play here in that it already links the state to society, links the Interior Ministry, a vital structure to the country, and its veterans," emphasized the minister.

Gryzlov announced that Interior Ministry veterans today number more than 500,000. He said 80,000 war veterans and invalids, family members of police officers who died in the line of duty and some other categories of retirees had received Interior Ministry benefits in the preceding year.