Russia and Sweden to Jointly Fight Russian Criminals in Sweden

Russia and Sweden have agreed to work together to prevent Russian citizens in Sweden from committing crime. Jan Karlsson, the Swedish Minister for Migration and Development Cooperation, announced this to journalists when giving details of his trip to Russia last week. According to Karlsson, an agreement was reached on cooperation between the two countries' migration agencies and police forces. Sweden asked Russia to sign an agreement on sending people who commit crimes in Sweden to serve their sentences in Russia. Russia promised to draw up a bilateral agreement on this matter. Karlsson added that one of the results of his visit to Russia was the creation of a Swedish-Russian group of experts to oversee collaboration between state structures of the two countries.

According to Sweden's police force, around 20% of Russians seeking asylum in Sweden over the last year have engaged in some form of criminal activity while waiting for their applications to be processed. The number of instances of ungrounded applications for asylum has been increasing.