"Eleven criminal youth groups comprising a total of 53 people have been uncovered in Moscow and St. Petersburg and their environs in 2008," General Gennady Ivanov told a news briefing, adding that the majority of the groups' members had been detained.
He said they had been accused of a combined total of about 40 attacks on foreigners and people with 'non-Slavic' features.
Racist attacks in Russia occur mainly in big cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the majority of foreigners and ethnic minorities live. Voronezh in southwest Russia, which has a large number of foreign students, has also seen frequent attacks.
The rise in racist violence in Russia was highlighted in the report by Amnesty International in late May.
"The number of racist attacks that have come to the attention of the media rose; at least 61 people have been killed across the country [in 2008]," the organization said.
Russian rights groups earlier said 66 people have been killed and 132 injured in race-hate crimes in the country this year.
Amnesty said Russian authorities have recognized the problem, and that the number of prosecutions for racially motivated crimes has increased, but that these measures have failed to curb violence.
Ivanov said a number of other investigations into suspected race-hate murders and attacks, including the killings of Indian and Iranian citizens in Moscow in September 2007, were continuing.
Russian media reported late last year that teenage ultra-nationalist gangs may have been responsible for up to 50 race-hate murders in Moscow in 2007.
