subsequently, experts identified a number of reasons why transportation may be categorized as a critical target:

• Sharp increase in hazardous cargo as a proportion of the total volume of goods transported

• High level of infrastructure decay and high accident rate in the transport sector

• Relative accessibility

• Use of smuggling by transnational criminal groups as a source of financing for terrorism

• Possibility of attracting broad public and media attention

• Association with national symbols (national airlines)

• Possibility that even a single act or attack will immediately affect many people

For these reasons, security and crime prevention in the transport sector is one of the priorities of the state and society.

Based on an analysis of legislation and law enforcement practices in 2000-2001, it was clear that transport policy did not include an antiterrorism component, and antiterrorism activities did not focus on transport. There was very little overlap between these two sectors. At that time we were asked to define a priority area in transport policy, namely, ensuring security and antiterrorism activities, and to create a similar focus on the transport sector as a priority area in antiterrorist activities. The CIS Transportation Coordinating Council agreed with this assessment in the Chisinau Declaration on Transportation Safety, as did the Council of Ministers of the European Conference of Transportation Ministers in its closing document and in the Bucharest Declaration on Combating Terrorism in Transport on June 6, 2002. This approach is also reflected in a statement on the fight against terrorism in the transport sector adopted on June 28, 2002, at the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) in Kananaskis, as well as in subsequent decisions of international and state structures. Further evidence that the first steps have been taken in developing this consciousness and understanding may be seen in subsequent years when the first intergovernmental agreement on transportation safety was adopted, including a set of principles and mechanisms for implementing state policy on transportation security and counterterrorism. Another important step was the adoption in 2006 of the Federal Law on Transportation Security. A comprehensive and systematic approach to these problems is reflected in the CIS Intergovernmental Program of Joint Measures for Combating Crime in 2005-2007 and in cooperative programs among CIS member states for fighting terrorism and other extremist phenomena in 2005-2007 and countering the illicit drug trade.

Thus, the problem of understanding and awareness at the level of experts, academics, and individual government officials and business leaders has today reached the level of government and international understanding, which has been