YEREVAN, June 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has more than 140 youth extremist groups with overall membership reaching 6,000, the country's interior minister said Wednesday.
"Youth groups have become more aggressive and better organized, and some of them are under the influence of criminal organizations," said Rashid Nurgaliyev. He spoke to reporters in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, where he is attending a joint board session of Russia's interior ministry and Armenia's police force.
Nurgaliev expressed concern over extremist organizations' promotion of violence among the younger generation.
"It is worrying that some of the extremist organizations use violent forms and methods of protest, promoting them among young people," he said.
The minister said law-enforcement agencies had launched anti-extremism raids in 38 of Russia's 89 regions so far this year, tracking down groups believed to be behind serious crimes, including in St. Petersburg and in the southwestern region of Voronezh, both of which have acquired reputations as sites of Russia's most violent race-hate crimes.
Voronezh has seen at least seven apparently racially motivated killings of non-white foreigners over the past six years, including the murder of a Peruvian student last October.
St. Petersburg has been suffering from negative publicity over alleged neo-Nazi attacks and killings, including the killing of a student from Senegal in April and the stabbing of a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian-African origin in early 2006.
