Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) in the context of Yakimanka

In the Russian Empire, government agencies exerted varying levels of control over the content and dissemination of books, periodicals, music, theatrical productions, works of art, and motion pictures. The agency in charge of censorship in the Russian Empire changed over time. In the early eighteenth century, the Russian emperor had direct control, but by the end of the eighteenth century, censorship was delegated to the Synod, the Senate, and the Academy of Sciences. Beginning in the nineteenth century, it fell under the charge of the Ministry of Education and finally the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The history of censorship in the Russia began long before the emergence of the empire. The first book containing an index of prohibited works dates to the year 1073, in Kievan Rus. For several centuries these were mere translations of censorship lists from other languages; the first authentic old Russian censorship index was created only in the fourteenth century. The number of indices (as well as illegal publications) increased steadily until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Censorship first attained a kind of official status in the period of the Tsardom (1547–1721): it was encoded in law in the Stoglav and was directed against heresies, schisms, and other alleged deviations from religious dogmas and sacred texts.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (MVD; Russian: Министерство внутренних дел СССР (МВД), romanized: Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del SSSR) was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1991. The MVD was established as the successor to the NKVD during the reform of the People's Commissariats into the Ministries of the Soviet Union in 1946 as part of a broader restructuring of the government. The MVD did not include agencies concerned with secret policing unlike the NKVD, with the function being assigned to the Ministry of State Security (MGB), which had been established during the Second World War. The MVD and MGB were briefly merged into a single ministry from March 1953 until the MGB was split off as the Committee for State Security (KGB) in March 1954.

This resulted in a system where one agency was responsible for domestic and foreign intelligence gathering, espionage, surveillance and secret police functions, and another responsible for the regular civilian police forces, fire departments and internal security troops. The MVD was headed by the Minister of Internal Affairs and responsible for many internal services in the Soviet Union such as the Militsiya, the national police force, the Internal Troops, which served as the USSR's national gendarmerie, the OMON riot control units, Traffic Safety, prisons, the Gulag system as well as the successive penal colonies, and the internal migration system. From 1966-1968, it was briefly known as the Ministry of Public Order Protection. The MVD was dissolved upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and succeeded by its branches in the post-Soviet states, the largest being the Russian MVD, which inherited its predecessor's functions, though its Internal Troops would later become their own independent service - the National Guard.

The Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (Russian: Внутренние войска Министерства внутренних дел (ВВ МВД), romanized: Vnutrenniye voyska Ministerstva vnutrennikh del (VV MVD)) was a paramilitary force of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia from 1991 to 2016.

The Internal Troops was a gendarmerie-like force that supported the Russian police, dealt with crowd control during riots and internal conflicts, and guarded highly-important facilities such as nuclear power plants. The Internal Troops was involved in all conflicts and violent disturbances in modern Russia, including the First and Second Chechen Wars, where it fell under direct military command during wartime and fulfilled missions of local defence and rear area security. The Internal Troops consisted of both volunteers and conscripts, which caused the number of active service members to fluctuate, with less than 200,000 upon their disestablishment from a peak strength of 350,000, and had experienced a shortage of officers since 1998. The final commander-in-chief of the Internal Troops was Colonel General Viktor Zolotov from 2014 to 2016.

The minister of internal affairs of the Russian Federation is the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The minister is appointed by the president of Russia upon recommendation of the prime minister. The current minister of internal affairs is Vladimir Kolokoltsev.

OMON is a system of military special police units within the National Guard of Russia. It previously operated within the structures of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD). Originating as the special forces unit of the Soviet Militsiya in 1988, it has played major roles in several armed conflicts during and following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

OMON is much larger and better known than SOBR, another special-police branch of the National Guard of Russia. In modern contexts, OMON serves as a riot police group, or as a gendarmerie-like paramilitary force. OMON units also exist in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and other post-Soviet states. However, some post-Soviet units have changed names and acronyms. Russian speakers commonly refer to OMON officers as omonovtsy (Russian: омоновцы; singular: omonovyets – Russian: омоновец).

The State Automobile Inspectorate (Russian: Государственная автомобильная инспекция, ГАИ, romanized: Gosudarstvennaya avtomobil'naya inspektsiya, GAI), formerly known as the Main Directorate for Traffic Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (Russian: Главное управление по обеспечению безопасности дорожного движения МВД России, ГУ ОБДД, GUOBDD, or Государственная инспекция безопасности дорожного движения, ГИБДД, GIBDD) is a federal law enforcement agency of Russia specializing in traffic policing. They are responsible for the regulation of traffic, investigating traffic accidents, operating stop lights and issuing driving license in Russia.

The Administration is part of the Public Security Service of the MVD. The Administration has patrol jurisdiction over all Russian highways and roads.