On December 21, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. Tactical special exercises for law enforcement officers of the Vitebsk, Pskov and Smolensk regions to counter vehicle theft will become regular. This was announced today at a press conference dedicated to the results of a joint meeting of the heads of the Internal Affairs Directorates of the Russian Federation for the Smolensk, Pskov regions and the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, by the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Regional Executive Committee Igor Evseev, BELTA correspondent reports. The heads of the internal affairs directorates of the three border regions stated that the interaction between Belarusian police officers and Russian police officers to counter criminal car business has been established. However, due to the fact that this problem still remains quite acute and affects the interests of ordinary citizens of the Union State, the heads of departments decided to hold joint tactical special exercises for the search and detention of stolen vehicles with the involvement of criminal investigation units of border territorial police departments at least once every six months. During the meeting, the system of operational response to requests from the neighboring side and the mechanism for exchanging operational information were also analyzed. The internal affairs bodies of the three border regions intend to appeal to the leadership of their regions with a request to jointly install stationary video surveillance cameras in the border area on the M1 and M8 highways. In addition to conducting joint exercises, the directorates agreed to conduct joint operations aimed at suppressing offenses on highways. Vitebsk police officers shared their experience in maintaining public order at mass events with their colleagues. In addition, the meeting discussed the security system for the Gazprom corporate festival of amateur creative groups to be held in Vitebsk in May 2013. Issues of countering extremism and terrorism were also considered. "Close interaction between the law enforcement agencies of Russia and Belarus allows us to build an effective barrier against crime," is confident the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Directorate of the Russian Federation for the Pskov region Boris Govorun. -0-

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