In 2022, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia planned to purchase 2,800 new patrol cars for 4.5 billion rubles. for the traffic police, but did not announce a tender for the purchase of cars. This became impossible due to sanctions risks, follows from the report of the directorate of the federal project “Road Safety”, which was reviewed by Kommersant.
The newspaper notes that until 2024, it was planned to spend a total of 35.3 billion rubles on updating the traffic police fleet. The police have been purchasing new cars since 2019 as part of the Road Safety federal project of the Safe High-Quality Roads national project.
So, in the first two years, the traffic police fleet was replenished with Skoda Octavia and UAZ Patriot, in 2021 – Hyundai Solaris and Lada Vesta. Kommersant clarifies that the last contract for the purchase of new patrol cars was signed in April 2021 with Major. The police bought 200 Hyundai Solaris for 1.27 million rubles.
The renewal of the fleet was also planned for 2022, but no tender for the purchase of new cars was announced. The documents studied by Kommersant note that this became impossible due to sanctions risks associated with the actions of unfriendly countries and the refusal of foreign manufacturers to supply cars and spare parts to Russia.
The report of the directorate of the federal project also notes that, in accordance with the “resolution” of Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, a “request for changing the passport of the federal project” has been prepared to redistribute the funds allocated for the purchase of cars. It is not specified what the money is planned to be spent on, the newspaper writes that this issue will be resolved by the end of November.
Interlocutors of Kommersant in the automotive industry admitted that due to sanctions and the departure of large manufacturers from Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs was unable to provide a large batch of locally produced cars. The editor-in-chief of the magazine “Behind the Wheel” Maxim Kadakov noted that the only available model for the traffic police is currently Lada Granta.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade and Khusnullin’s office declined to comment. The Ministry of Internal Affairs emphasized that “the units of the internal affairs bodies are provided with a wide range of modern vehicles.”
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