OREANDA-NEWS. May 17, 2012. Vladimir Putin visited the Russian Institute for Advanced Training of Interior Ministry Personnel, where he viewed lecture halls and teaching facilities.

The President attended classes at the transport safety centre, the centre for training Russian Interior Ministry officers taking part in peacekeeping missions.

Vladimir Putin also visited an international training centre under the auspices of Interpol, which trains staff involved in countering drug trafficking. During his conversation with the centre’s teachers and students, Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of training specialists to combat drug trafficking and said that anti-drug efforts will be a central theme of the G8 Summit, which will be held on May 18-19 in the United States.

The President saw how the passenger screening facility works, in particular the facial recognition and passenger identification hardware and software; he also saw the equipment which detects hazardous content of closed containers and authenticates documents. The President also learned about the hardware-software complex which picks out potentially dangerous individuals among passengers using visual identification technology.

The Russian Institute for Advanced Training of Interior Ministry Personnel is one of the leading educational institutions in the further education system of the Russian Interior Ministry and special services of the Collective Security Treaty member states. The institute has branches in a number of Russian regions: in Penza, Bryansk and Naberezhnye Chelny. It provides advanced training for over 6,000 employees of the Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service, Federal Customs Service and security services of the CIS and other countries.

Vladimir Putin laid a wreath at the memorial to the Interior Ministry officers and servicemen who were killed in the fight against terror.