The Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No.333 fom May 4, 2010 approves the instruction on receiving, registering, and resolving applications, messages and other information on crimes and accidents in the internal affairs’ bodies of Russia.

The new instruction has one essentially new feature: it provides online application/message submission. In our opinion, this is a very important positive change, both saving time of citizens wishing to report on crimes and providing opportunities to report on cybercrimes citing URLs as proof.

However, is it not clear how this will be practically implemented since most police stations in Russia have no websites. In theory, it seems possible that an online report at the Ministry website on a crime that took place in the Far East will be printed and send by post from Moscow to local law-enforcement bodies, so that the procedure will take much time. It also remains unclear how will an applicant be able to control progress of his/her application registration and review.

The Order itself is available in Russian online.