2019 Edition

The Annotated Putin: 'State Of The Nation' Dissected

What Putin said, what he didn't say -- and what he really meant during his 'State Of The Nation' speech.

Illustration: Carlos Coelho

Last year's address was partly a campaign speech, and Putin started with lofty talk of choices, democracy, and even conquering space. This time he stayed closer to the ground and cut to the chase, talking about the need to meet the social and economic "demands and expectations" of the people.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

A recent poll by the respected Levada Center research group found that there are more Russians who believe the country is heading in the wrong direction than those who see a positive trajectory. State pollster VTsIOM found that as of February 10, only 32.6 percent of Russians said they trusted Putin. That number stood at 45 percent in March 2005 and 65 percent in March 2015, according to VTsIOM's head.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Although Putin creates the impression that the "national projects" started with his May 2018 decrees, they actually have a much longer history. They were first laid out in 2005 and were intended to produce dramatic breakthroughs in the areas of housing, health care, education, and agriculture. Then-First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was put in charge of them and used the visibility of the projects to create a national reputation ahead of his rise to the presidency in 2008. When Medvedev became president, he appointed his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as head of the national projects and the whole initiative faded away. The lavish website of the project -- www.rost.ru -- was quietly taken over by the Party of Growth political party. In recent years, the government's policies in the areas of health care and education have focused on "optimization," which in fact has meant the closure of numerous clinics and schools in rural areas. It is safe to say that most Russians have not felt tangible results from the government's 15 years of effort in these purportedly high-priority projects.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

"No time for getting up to speed" is one of Putin's favorite expressions. He has used a form of it at least six times since 2007.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin repeated the word "momentum" but talked less than in recent appearances about the need for a "breakthrough" -- which might be an achievement more measurable than "momentum."

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Putin has a long record of publicly upbraiding local and federal officials, accusing them of failing to implement policy and take care of the average person. These displays often appear calculated to give the impression of a beneficial ruler whose vision for the country is obstructed by incompetent subordinates.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

According to a recent Levada survey, 52 percent of Russians believe the government "usually or always" lies to them. Fifty-seven percent said that at least half of all Russians hide the truth about how they feel about President Putin.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

A strange-sounding plea from a man who has ruled the country since 2000. Some commentators observing Putin's speech this year quipped that it sounded like something an opposition candidate might say.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Message to "tandem" partner Dmitry Medvedev: No pressure. Actually, the opposite: Here Putin seemed to put pressure on Medvedev, who has been prime minister for more than six years and could potentially be eyeing a second stint as president, to perform.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Translation: If a goal is not achieved, the Kremlin and even the central government in Moscow are not to blame -- but they are watching regional and local officials closely, and want results.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Speaking of the country's financial resources, Putin ignores the cost of the corruption engendered by the opaque system that he has created. In 2009, those costs were estimated at $318 billion or one-third of GDP. In a recent report, the European Parliamentary Research Service said that corruption and poor governance were major obstacles to economic development in Russia. "The ambitious economic targets set by Putin completely lack credibility, and a poor track record of implementing reforms to encourage economic growth in recent years makes it doubtful that Russia is about to turn the economic corner," the report states. A 2017 report by the GAN Business Anticorruption Portal outlines the many ways in which corruption holds back the Russian economy.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin sets a few tangible goals in this speech, which is always dangerous for a politician. Most of them, however, are set for the end of 2020, which means they can be safely overridden by new goals during next year's state-of-the-nation address. In the next sentence, he says that "at the beginning of next year...we will evaluate the first results of our work on the national projects," again creating the impression that this is a new effort, and not one that he originally laid out in 2005.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In the language of Russian bureaucracy, "draw conclusions" means "fire people."

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Is Putin hinting at a major shakeup of power coming "at the beginning of next year"? This could be the one promise in Putin's speech that is worth noting in your calendar.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

"Family values" is a social-conservative dog whistle in Russia just as it is in many parts of the West. Putin's mention of "religious organizations, political parties, and the media" in the next sentence is also significant for a society characterized by open homophobia and intolerance for LGBT rights.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In other words, in the months before the next presidential election, in which Putin is currently barred from running by term limits. Achieving this core demographic goal would be a feather in Putin's cap if he wants to stay on, assume some other leading role, or anoint a chosen successor.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Direct subsidies are a problematic form of public assistance, particularly in Russia. People who are dependent on the government for their incomes -- state-sector workers, the military, pensioners, and so on -- make up the core electorate that the Kremlin mobilizes each election to ensure the results it needs. They can be a two-edged sword, however, as seen by the mass social unrest when the government eliminated "in-kind social benefits" in 2005 and last year when the government raised retirement ages.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Opinion polls show that this program of subsidies, introduced under Putin in 2007, is exceedingly popular among Russian citizens. One Russian sociologist has said that "even discussions about ending" it would hurt the country's demographics. After Putin's decision to raise the retirement age last year triggered protests and dented his ratings, a boost for these subsidies is a political winner for the Kremlin.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Putin is proposing raising the subsidy for primary caregivers from $83 a month to $152.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

You can get a snapshot of the problem of chronic illness in Russia from this 2018 story about Siberian kids battling cystic fibrosis. "I told all this to the court," one parent seeking medicine for her child told RFE/RL. "And I cried. Even the judge couldn't take it. She quickly ended the hearing and issued a ruling in my favor."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Opposition political figure Aleksei Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation has made a reputation in recent years exposing the luxury houses and apartments owned by Russia's ruling elites both in Moscow and abroad. He began one recent blog post thus: "Lately I have had the impression that Putin has announced some sort of strange competition among his corrupt cronies. Every week you go online and read something like: 'the head of Russian Post has bought an apartment for 1 billion rubles' or '[Rosneft CEO Igor] Sechin has bought a record-large five-story apartment with 1,229 square meters,' or '[Gazprom CEO Aleksei] Miller has bought an apartment even larger than Sechin's -- 1,396 square meters.'"

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Mortgages are a major problem for Russia that has festered for many years. The country sees periodic waves of protests by people who took out hard-currency mortgages and are now unable to pay them back as the ruble collapses. In 2016, the head of the Russian Bank Association told such protesters: "You knew it was a risk. No one forced you to commit to these mortgages." There is also a major problem of so-called deceived mortgage holders -- people making payments to construction firms for as-yet-unbuilt apartments that are never finished. That issue has been recently taken up by flamboyant U.S. mixed-martial-arts fighter Jeff Monson, who was elected a local legislator in the Moscow region last year.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin reassured Russians that the money needed to meet at least some of his goals is there, but gave few details about exactly where.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

There is another narrative about the government's ongoing "optimization" of the education sector. See this Meduza report from last year. "Thanks to the 'optimization' initiative under way in Karelia and other regions across the country, officials are shutting down kindergartens, schools, and hospital wards, and laying off staff."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Trolling or coincidence? During Putin's speech, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny released a new blog post alleging that firms owned by Putin crony and sanctioned Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin are providing rotten and unsanitary food to Moscow kindergartens.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

If this goal is achieved, Russians will truly not recognize their own country.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The World Bank said in December that the number of poor people in Russia decreased by 1.1 million in the first two quarters of 2018, but that the poverty rate remained more than 13 percent and is expected to average 12 percent over the next three years -- "still above its pre-crisis rate of 10.8 percent in 2013."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Putin is pretty vague in this section, so it will take some time to figure out exactly what he means and what the successes of these regions comprise. Local media in Tomsk, however, noted that in 2016 the region entered the top 20 poorest regions in Russia, with 16.4 percent of the population living below the poverty line. By 2018, that figure had risen to 17.5 percent.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin does not explicitly mention the growing problem of predatory debt collectors in Russia. State media reported on February 18 that a pair of debt collectors were accused of abducting a woman's 10-month-old baby as collateral in St. Petersburg. For an overview of the problem, see this 2016 RFE/RL report.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Another perennial problem. The Duma was in the process of passing new laws on predatory lending back in 2017.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Interactions with the state can be unpleasant; Putin seems eager to change the people's perception of the government by urging public employees to be respectful.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Moscow continues to be the center of health care in Russia. To take just one example, when a baby was rescued in January from a collapsed apartment block in Magnitogorsk (a city of more than 400,000 people or about the size of New Orleans in the United States), he was sent to a hospital in Moscow, some 1,700 kilometers away. Luckily, he seems to have made a full recovery.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Some of the major waste-disposal companies serving Moscow and other major cities have been tied to Igor Chaika, the 30-year-old son of Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika. Activists believe this is one reason why law enforcement authorities have been so active in cracking down on the landfill protests. This 2018 RFE/RL report looked into the nexus between the Chaika businesses, the landfill protests, and corrupt Moscow prosecutors.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin referred here to a group that analysts say was established as a kind of alternative power base to the unpopular United Russia party. In deputizing the Popular Front as a kind of monitor and ordering officials to heed it, he may have two goals: 1. To improve efforts to eradicate the waste-dump problem 2. To channel influence on the issue away from angry protesters and into the hands of loyal followers.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Putin has said this before, with similarly little detail as to how to go about it.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Putin expressed irritation here at what he says was the need for his personal intervention, but his surprise is surprising, as critics say he has fostered a top-down system as well as the image of himself as the go-to guy for the Russian people.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Another "change" in Russia's educational system, activists say, is that schools are increasingly being used by the authorities to monitor the political activity of children and to label protesters as "fascists" or "traitors".

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Last month the regional rights ombudsman in the Kemerovo region reported that children there had been "fainting from hunger" in class. "Some children go to lunch at school, but others sit in their classrooms and do not eat lunch," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin does not discuss how this initiative would jibe with the government's accelerating effort to cut off the Russian Internet from the rest of the world.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In practice, the best of the best, when it comes to textbooks, means "the most patriotic."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The World Bank said in December that Russia's growth prospects for 2018-2020 "remain modest, forecast at 1.5 percent to 1.8" but that "higher-than-expected oil prices could favorably affect the growth forecast." It added that "various government initiatives could double Russia's potential growth rate to 3% by 2028."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Corruption in the state tenders system is a massive problem in Russia. In 2016, Forbes magazine reported that four of the top five recipients of state tenders -- with some $12.8 billion in state orders -- were prominent members of Putin's inner circle, including Kirill Shamalov, who is believed to be married to Putin's youngest daughter.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The most prominent piece of legislation involving the Internet at the moment is a bill that backers -- who are not champions of the digital economy -- say is designed to ensure the autonomous operation of the Internet in Russia if access to servers abroad is cut off. Critics fear it's aimed at increasing state control over web traffic, facilitating censorship, and stifling dissent.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

The Russian government, with its poor record of consumer protection and its well-established practice of using oversight agencies for political purposes, will have a hard time generating domestic or international confidence in such a "protected brand."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Indeed, Putin did address the issue in his state-of-the-nation speech last year, saying: "The Criminal Code should not serve as a tool for settling corporate disputes." But based on recent history, there's little indication the situation will change dramatically. It was more than a decade ago, after all, that then-President Dmitry Medvedev -- a Putin protege who is now prime minister -- famously said Russian law enforcement "should stop terrorizing business."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

To again cite the GAN Business Anticorruption Portal report on Russia, "The business environment suffers from inconsistent application of laws and a lack of transparency and accountability in the public administration. Russia's regulatory inefficiency substantially increases the cost of doing business and has a negative effect on market competition.... Effective enforcement of anticorruption legislation is hindered by a politicized and corrupt judicial system." It is worth noting that Putin has nothing to say about the fundamental problem of the corrupt judiciary.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

This line comes just days after prominent U.S. investor Michael Calvey was placed under arrest by a Moscow court on fraud charges. Calvey and his investment fund, Baring Vostok, deny any wrongdoing. Several prominent Kremlin-connected Russians have offered support for Calvey. Former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, a longtime close associate of Putin, said he considered Calvey's arrest "an emergency for the [Russian] economy."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Two paragraphs earlier, Putin said there were too many unfounded criminal investigations of businesses. Now he suggests increasing the number of investigators? A strange solution.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

As Financial Times journalist Max Seddon noted on Twitter, one of this organization’s directors is Russian businessman Artyom Avetisyan, a shareholder of Vostochny Bank. Calvey’s fund, Baring Vostok, is the bank's majority investor, and his lawyer says the charges stem from a corporate dispute between the fund and Vostochny. Calvey's lawyer specifically named Avetisyan as one of Baring Vostok's opponents in the conflict. Avetisyan has links to Russian security services.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Putin often makes wry little jokes in his public appearances. This one was at the expense of Ukraine and the 100+ countries that do not recognize Crimea as Russian after its takeover in 2014. There was no war over the peninsula at that time, but one of Russia's stated pretexts for its seizure was what Moscow claimed was the threat of violence by Kyiv and its backers. Ukraine and Western governments say there was no such threat.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

According to this report, more than 100 Russian bridges collapsed in 2017. The country has some 42,000 bridges, about half of which "require urgent repair." The report also notes that in 2002, Putin set the goal of having no dangerous bridges in the country by 2010.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The Moscow-Petersburg expressway was started in 2010. It was supposed to be completed in time for the World Cup in the summer of 2018. However, the completion date has been pushed back to September 2019. Construction proceeded over the strong objections of local residents in the Moscow region who lamented the destruction of the Khimki forest. One key leader of those protests, Yevgenia Chirikova, was forced to flee Russia after threats from the authorities that her children might be taken from her. In April 2013, Khimki newspaper editor Mikhail Beketov died from injuries sustained five years earlier when he was savagely beaten over, supporters say, his newspaper's stand against the highway.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Out of sight, out of mind: As he seeks to bolster relations with China, Japan, and others in Asia, Putin reminds officials in Moscow not to forget about the Far East.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Here is an RFE/RL feature on the government's efforts to develop the Far East.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based researcher specializing in Russia's nuclear arsenal, told RFE/RL this week that the Avangard "appears to be reasonably successful and will probably be deployed next year as expected."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

This academy was established by a foundation co-created by Russian cellist Sergei Roldugin, a friend of Putin's who was alleged in the Panama Papers expose to have controlled offshore firms through which some $2 billion secretly flowed, including to entities and individuals close to Putin. The Panama Papers reports were denounced by Putin as a "provocation." Putin said he was "proud" of Roldugin, claiming the cellist "has spent nearly all the money he has earned on buying musical instruments abroad and he brought them to Russia" for musicians. Roldugin’s foundation has received substantial funding from some of Russia’s wealthiest people, and it is set to receive 6.3 billion rubles ($96.1 million) from the Russian budget over the next three years, the Russian newspaper RBK reported in October.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Many young Russians do not view a future in their homeland as optimistically as Putin does. Here are profiles of some of the nearly 200,000 people per year who permanently leave.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The EU, in conjunction with the United States, has hit Russia with waves of sanctions over Moscow’s seizure and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in March 2018, among other issues. There's no sign that these sanctions will be lifted anytime soon, though German Chancellor Angela Merkel said

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Putin omits all the reasons why relations with Europe are strained, so it might be useful to recap some of them: Russian interference in numerous elections and referendums in EU countries over the last decade; Russia's active disinformation campaigns across the EU; Russian-based cyberattacks targeting numerous EU countries; provocative Russian military flights in and around EU and NATO airspace; Russia's alleged interference with GPS navigation systems in Scandinavia; Russia's continued deployment of "peacekeepers" in Moldova despite that country's repeated requests that Russian troops be replaced with UN peacekeepers; Russia's 2008 war against Georgia and its continued occupation of some 20 percent of Georgian territory; Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region; Russia's intense involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine, which the ICC in November 2016 ruled "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation"; Russia's obstructionism in implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the Ukraine conflict; Russia's role in the 2014 downing of a passenger airliner over Ukraine that killed 298 people; Russia's alleged poisoning of Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006; and Russia's alleged attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

U.S. officials have said Russia started developing the missile in question secretly in the late 2000s, but only went public with their accusations in 2014. More recently, U.S. officials have offered up new, more specific data on the missile system, and even shared them with NATO allies, to garner their support.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

The actual verb Putin used here caused quite a stir among Russia's chattering classes. The word -- in Russian "подхрюкивать" -- is more accurately translated as "oink along," like pigs (the Kremlin opted to leave out the pig context in its official English translation). In major speeches and public appearances, Putin frequently deploys a colorful -- sometimes bawdy -- phrase or metaphor, buttressing his carefully crafted image as a tough-talking man of the people. Previous examples include his pledge to "waste" terrorists "in the outhouse," and his portrayal of opposition activists as "jackals" who "scavenge" for handouts "at foreign embassies."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

The Kremlin has honed in on the Mk-41 launch system, which is used in the Aegis Ashore missile-defense system that is based in Romania. Moscow argues the launcher is in violation of the INF Treaty, because, it says, it can be used to launch INF-capable missiles. Washington has repeatedly denied that assertion. Moreover, it says the Mk-41 system deployed on land is only capable of launching defensive interceptor missiles, such as the SM-3, not Tomahawk missiles.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

In December 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia had already deployed several batalions equipped with the missile that is allegedly in violation of the INF Treaty.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

The concept of a nuclear-powered missile alarmed many arms-control experts, who point to early U.S. efforts in the 1960s to develop a similar weapon. The U.S. effort was halted, in part, after the realization that such a missile would spew dangerous nuclear radiation all along its flight path.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

The Kremlin has made submarine construction a priority for naval defense budgets in recent years, emphasizing an underwater fleet over a surface fleet. Three next-generation, Borei-class ballistic-missile submarines have entered service since 2013, with a fourth scheduled to join in 2019. Four more Borei-II-class subs are currently under construction.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

It is undoubtedly true that Russia needs peace to develop, but it is less clear whether Putinism needs peace to survive. Since coming to power in 2000, Putin has often legitimized his authoritarian methods by stoking fears of external enemies surrounding his supposedly beleaguered country. "In the Russian case, the primacy of the state has been legitimized with reference to real or (more often) imagined threats, both internal and external," analyst Lilia Shevtsova wrote in a 2010 monograph for the Carnegie Endowment. "Those threats had to be severe enough to justify the militarization of everyday life in Russia and the subjugation of the very foundations of society to militarist goals. In short, Russia developed a unique model for the survival and reproduction of power in a permanent state of war. This situation was maintained even in peacetime...."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin concludes his speech with an unsubtle hint that dissent is not to be tolerated, that failing to follow the government's leadership is tantamount to fracturing the country and undermining its development. "Solidarity in striving for change," he says in the next paragraph. "A unified society, people being involved in the affairs of their country," he says in the last paragraph. But the limits of that involvement in the age of Putinism are strictly enforced.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Members of the Federation Council, State Duma deputies, citizens of Russia,

Today’s Address is primarily devoted to matters of domestic social and economic development. I would like to focus on the objectives set forth in the May 2018 Executive Order and detailed in the national projects. Their content and the targets they set are a reflection of the demands and expectations of Russia’s citizens. People are at the core of the national projects, which are designed to bring about a new quality of life for all generations. This can only be achieved by generating momentum in Russia’s development.

Last year's address was partly a campaign speech, and Putin started with lofty talk of choices, democracy, and even conquering space. This time he stayed closer to the ground and cut to the chase, talking about the need to meet the social and economic "demands and expectations" of the people.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

A recent poll by the respected Levada Center research group found that there are more Russians who believe the country is heading in the wrong direction than those who see a positive trajectory. State pollster VTsIOM found that as of February 10, only 32.6 percent of Russians said they trusted Putin. That number stood at 45 percent in March 2005 and 65 percent in March 2015, according to VTsIOM's head.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Although Putin creates the impression that the "national projects" started with his May 2018 decrees, they actually have a much longer history. They were first laid out in 2005 and were intended to produce dramatic breakthroughs in the areas of housing, health care, education, and agriculture. Then-First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was put in charge of them and used the visibility of the projects to create a national reputation ahead of his rise to the presidency in 2008. When Medvedev became president, he appointed his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as head of the national projects and the whole initiative faded away. The lavish website of the project -- www.rost.ru -- was quietly taken over by the Party of Growth political party. In recent years, the government's policies in the areas of health care and education have focused on "optimization," which in fact has meant the closure of numerous clinics and schools in rural areas. It is safe to say that most Russians have not felt tangible results from the government's 15 years of effort in these purportedly high-priority projects.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

These are long-term objectives that we have set for ourselves. However, work to achieve these strategic goals has to begin today. Time is always in short supply, as I have already said on numerous occasions, and you all know this all too well. There is simply no time for getting up to speed or making any adjustments. All in all, I believe that we have already completed the stage of articulating objectives and outlining tools for achieving our goals. Departing from the targets that were outlined would be unacceptable. It is true that these are challenging objectives. That being said, lowering the requirements for specific targets or watering them down is not an option. As I have already said, these are formidable challenges that require us to undertake major efforts. However, they are in step with the scale and pace of global change. It is our duty to keep pushing ahead and gaining momentum.

"No time for getting up to speed" is one of Putin's favorite expressions. He has used a form of it at least six times since 2007.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Putin repeated the word "momentum" but talked less than in recent appearances about the need for a "breakthrough" -- which might be an achievement more measurable than "momentum."

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

If someone prefers to work in the business as usual mode, without challenges, avoiding initiative or responsibility, they had better leave immediately. I already hear that some things are “impossible,” “too difficult,” “the standards are too high,” and “it will not work.” With such an attitude, you had better stay away.

Putin has a long record of publicly upbraiding local and federal officials, accusing them of failing to implement policy and take care of the average person. These displays often appear calculated to give the impression of a beneficial ruler whose vision for the country is obstructed by incompetent subordinates.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Besides, you cannot fool the people. They are acutely aware of hypocrisy, lack of respect or any injustice. They have little interest in red tape and bureaucratic routine. It is important for people to see what is really being done and the impact it has on their lives and the lives of their families. And not sometime in the future, but now. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past decades and wait for communism to arrive. We have to change the situation for the better now.

According to a recent Levada survey, 52 percent of Russians believe the government "usually or always" lies to them. Fifty-seven percent said that at least half of all Russians hide the truth about how they feel about President Putin.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

A strange-sounding plea from a man who has ruled the country since 2000. Some commentators observing Putin's speech this year quipped that it sounded like something an opposition candidate might say.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Therefore, the work of the executive branch at all levels should be coordinated, meaningful and energetic. The Government of Russia must set the tone.

Message to "tandem" partner Dmitry Medvedev: No pressure. Actually, the opposite: Here Putin seemed to put pressure on Medvedev, who has been prime minister for more than six years and could potentially be eyeing a second stint as president, to perform.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

At the same time, I would like to emphasize and repeat: our development projects are not federal and even less so agency-based. They are national. Their results must be visible in each region of the Federation, in every municipality. It is here, on the ground, that the majority of specific tasks is implemented.

Translation: If a goal is not achieved, the Kremlin and even the central government in Moscow are not to blame -- but they are watching regional and local officials closely, and want results.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Allow me to underscore: thanks to years of common work and the results achieved, we can now direct and concentrate enormous financial resources – at least enormous for our country – on development goals. These resources have not come as a rainfall. We have not borrowed them. These funds have been earned by millions of our citizens – by the entire country. They need to be applied to increase the wealth of Russia and the wellbeing of Russian families.

Speaking of the country's financial resources, Putin ignores the cost of the corruption engendered by the opaque system that he has created. In 2009, those costs were estimated at $318 billion or one-third of GDP. In a recent report, the European Parliamentary Research Service said that corruption and poor governance were major obstacles to economic development in Russia. "The ambitious economic targets set by Putin completely lack credibility, and a poor track record of implementing reforms to encourage economic growth in recent years makes it doubtful that Russia is about to turn the economic corner," the report states. A 2017 report by the GAN Business Anticorruption Portal outlines the many ways in which corruption holds back the Russian economy.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Very soon, this year people should feel real changes for the better. It is on the basis of their opinion and assessments at the beginning of next year that we will evaluate the first results of our work on the national projects. And we will draw the appropriate conclusions about the work quality and performance at all levels of executive power.

Putin sets a few tangible goals in this speech, which is always dangerous for a politician. Most of them, however, are set for the end of 2020, which means they can be safely overridden by new goals during next year's state-of-the-nation address. In the next sentence, he says that "at the beginning of next year...we will evaluate the first results of our work on the national projects," again creating the impression that this is a new effort, and not one that he originally laid out in 2005.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In the language of Russian bureaucracy, "draw conclusions" means "fire people."

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Is Putin hinting at a major shakeup of power coming "at the beginning of next year"? This could be the one promise in Putin's speech that is worth noting in your calendar.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Colleagues,

Let me now share some specifics on our objectives. I will begin with the key objective of preserving our nation, which means providing all-around support to families.

Family, childbirth, procreation and respect for the elderly have always served as a powerful moral framework for Russia and its multi-ethnic people. We have been doing everything in our power to strengthen family values and are committed to doing so in the future. In fact, our future is at stake. This is a task shared by the state, civil society, religious organisations, political parties and the media.

"Family values" is a social-conservative dog whistle in Russia just as it is in many parts of the West. Putin's mention of "religious organizations, political parties, and the media" in the next sentence is also significant for a society characterized by open homophobia and intolerance for LGBT rights.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Russia has entered an extremely challenging period in terms of demographics. As you know, the birth rate is declining. As I have already said, this is caused by purely objective reasons, which have to do with the immense human losses and birth dearth experienced by our country in the 20th century, during the Great Patriotic War and the dramatic years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This does not mean, however, that we must accept this situation or come to terms with it. Definitely, not.

We succeeded in overcoming the negative demographic trends in the early 2000s, when our country faced extreme challenges. This seemed to be an impossible challenge at the time. Nevertheless, we succeeded, and I strongly believe that we can do it again by returning to natural population growth by late 2023 – early 2024.

In other words, in the months before the next presidential election, in which Putin is currently barred from running by term limits. Achieving this core demographic goal would be a feather in Putin's cap if he wants to stay on, assume some other leading role, or anoint a chosen successor.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Today, I wanted to talk about a new package of measures that has already been prepared to support families.

First, it is important that having children and bringing them up do not put families at the risk of poverty or undermine their wellbeing. As you know, we have already provided for the payment of subsidies for the first two children until they reach 18 months. Benefits for the first child are paid from the federal budget, and families can use the maternity capital subsidy for obtaining benefits for their second child. The size of the subsidy depends on the regional subsistence level for a child. It may vary from 8,000 rubles in Belgorod Region, for example, to 22,000 rubles in Chukotka Autonomous Area, with the national average of over 11,000 rubles a month per child. Currently these allocations are reserved to families whose income does not exceed the subsistence wage multiplied by 1.5 per person. It is time that we make the next step.

Direct subsidies are a problematic form of public assistance, particularly in Russia. People who are dependent on the government for their incomes -- state-sector workers, the military, pensioners, and so on -- make up the core electorate that the Kremlin mobilizes each election to ensure the results it needs. They can be a two-edged sword, however, as seen by the mass social unrest when the government eliminated "in-kind social benefits" in 2005 and last year when the government raised retirement ages.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Opinion polls show that this program of subsidies, introduced under Putin in 2007, is exceedingly popular among Russian citizens. One Russian sociologist has said that "even discussions about ending" it would hurt the country's demographics. After Putin's decision to raise the retirement age last year triggered protests and dented his ratings, a boost for these subsidies is a political winner for the Kremlin.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Starting January 1, 2020, I propose raising the bar to two subsistence wages per family member. This is what people have requested and these requests come directly into the Executive Office. This measure will increase the number of families entitled to additional benefits by almost 50 percent. Some 70 percent of families with one or two children will be able to benefit from help from the Government.

Second. At present, carers looking after children with disabilities and people disabled since childhood receive an allowance of only 5,500 rubles. I suggest increasing this to 10,000 rubles, starting July 1. Of course, I understand that it is still a small amount. However, it will be an additional measure of support for families with a child who needs special care.

Putin is proposing raising the subsidy for primary caregivers from $83 a month to $152.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

You can get a snapshot of the problem of chronic illness in Russia from this 2018 story about Siberian kids battling cystic fibrosis. "I told all this to the court," one parent seeking medicine for her child told RFE/RL. "And I cried. Even the judge couldn't take it. She quickly ended the hearing and issued a ruling in my favor."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Third. The income of Russian families must, of course, increase. This is a serious task that requires a comprehensive solution. I will speak about this in greater detail later. But we need direct measures. First of all, the tax burden on families needs to be relieved. The approach should be very simple: the more children there are, the lower the tax. I propose increasing federal tax relief on real estate for families with many children. I also propose lifting taxes on 5 square metres in a flat and 7 square metres in a house per each child.

Opposition political figure Aleksei Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation has made a reputation in recent years exposing the luxury houses and apartments owned by Russia's ruling elites both in Moscow and abroad. He began one recent blog post thus: "Lately I have had the impression that Putin has announced some sort of strange competition among his corrupt cronies. Every week you go online and read something like: 'the head of Russian Post has bought an apartment for 1 billion rubles' or '[Rosneft CEO Igor] Sechin has bought a record-large five-story apartment with 1,229 square meters,' or '[Gazprom CEO Aleksei] Miller has bought an apartment even larger than Sechin's -- 1,396 square meters.'"

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

What does this mean? If, for example, right now, 20 square metres in a flat are not subject to tax, the new measure will mean that for a family with three children, an extra 15 square metres will not be subject to tax. Regarding plots of land that belong to families with many children, I propose that 600 square metres should be exempt from tax, and this means most plots of land will be free from taxation. Let me remind you that this benefit is already available to pensioners and people of pre-retirement age. Of course, in many Russian regions there are local tax benefits on land and property for large families. However, the benefit being imposed at the federal level guarantees that it will be available everywhere in the country. I want to ask regional officials to propose additional tax measures to support families with children.

Fourth, the Government and the Central Bank need to consistently maintain the policy to lower mortgage rates to 9 percent, and then to 8 percent or below, as stipulated in the May 2018 Executive Order. At the same time, special measures of support should be provided for families with children, of course. As a reminder, last year, a preferential mortgage programme was launched for families that have had their second or subsequent child. The rate for them is 6 percent. Anything higher is subsidised by the state. However, only 4,500 families have used the benefit.

Mortgages are a major problem for Russia that has festered for many years. The country sees periodic waves of protests by people who took out hard-currency mortgages and are now unable to pay them back as the ruble collapses. In 2016, the head of the Russian Bank Association told such protesters: "You knew it was a risk. No one forced you to commit to these mortgages." There is also a major problem of so-called deceived mortgage holders -- people making payments to construction firms for as-yet-unbuilt apartments that are never finished. That issue has been recently taken up by flamboyant U.S. mixed-martial-arts fighter Jeff Monson, who was elected a local legislator in the Moscow region last year.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The question is why. It means that people are somehow dissatisfied with the proposed conditions. But it is also clear why. A family making a decision to buy housing certainly makes plans for a long or at least medium term, a lasting investment. But with this programme, they take out a loan, start paying the instalments, and the grace period ends. The interest is actually subsidised only for the first 3 or 5 years. I propose extending the benefit for the entire term of the mortgage loan.

Yes, of course, it will require additional funding, and the cost will be rather high: 7.6 billion rubles in 2019, 21.7 billion rubles in 2020, and 30.6 billion rubles in 2021. But the programme is estimated to reach as many as 600,000 families. We certainly need to find the money. We know where to get it. We have it, and we just need to use it in the areas that are of major importance to us.

Putin reassured Russians that the money needed to meet at least some of his goals is there, but gave few details about exactly where.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

And one more direct action solution. Considering the sustainability and stability of the macroeconomic situation in the country and the growth of the state’s revenues, I consider it possible to introduce another measure of support for families having a third and subsequent children. I suggest paying 450,000 rubles directly from the federal budget to cover this sum from their mortgage. Importantly, I propose backdating this payment starting January 1, 2019, recalculating it and allocating relevant sums in this year’s budget.

Let us see what we have. If we add this sum to the maternity capital, which can also be used for mortgage payments, we will get over 900,000 rubles. In many regions, this is a substantial part of the cost of a flat. I would like to draw the attention of the Government and the State Duma to this issue. If need be, the budget will have to be adjusted accordingly. An additional 26.2 billion rubles will be required for this in 2019. The relevant figures for 2020 and 2021 are 28.6 billion rubles and 30.1 billion rubles, respectively. These are huge funds but they should be allocated and used in what I have already described as a very important area.

It is necessary to give families an opportunity not only to buy ready-made housing but also to build their own housing on their land. I would like to ask the Government to draft in cooperation with the Central Bank convenient and, most importantly, affordable financial instruments for supporting private housing construction because it is not covered by mortgage loans today.

And, last but not least, the tax on land must be fair. Obviously, the cadastral or market value of a land plot can change but tax rates must not go up and down unpredictably like roller coaster rides. We have already limited to 10 percent the annual growth of the tax rates for residential property. I suggest establishing the same limit for land plots.

Moving on, today, when construction companies build social facilities and transfer them to the state or municipalities, they have to pay profit tax and VAT. We need to relieve construction companies of this burden (including our innovations in the construction sector). This will serve as an impetus for the comprehensive development of cities and townships, ensuring that families have everything they need near their homes: clinics, schools and sports facilities. By doing this, we will enable parents to work, study, live happily and enjoy parenthood.

We have come close to guaranteeing universal access to kindergartens, but by the end of 2021, we will have to resolve the problem with nurseries by enabling them to accept 270,000 more children, including in the private sector, with 90,000 places to be created as early as this year. The federal and regional budgets should allocate 147 billion rubles for this purpose, over a three-year period. Let me add that enrolling in a nursery group, kindergarten, getting subsidies, benefits or the tax deductions that I have already mentioned and, I hope, that we will come up with, together with you, all this should happen without any additional applications, excessive paperwork or having to visit various social services. By the end of 2020, all the key government services must be provided in a proactive format where a person will only need to send in a request for a service that he or she needs, and the system will take care of all the rest independently and automatically.

There is another narrative about the government's ongoing "optimization" of the education sector. See this Meduza report from last year. "Thanks to the 'optimization' initiative under way in Karelia and other regions across the country, officials are shutting down kindergartens, schools, and hospital wards, and laying off staff."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Trolling or coincidence? During Putin's speech, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny released a new blog post alleging that firms owned by Putin crony and sanctioned Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin are providing rotten and unsanitary food to Moscow kindergartens.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

If this goal is achieved, Russians will truly not recognize their own country.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

I would like to emphasise that the package of measures to support families proposed today is not an exhaustive list of initiatives. It sets the priorities. Considering the challenges posed by the state of Russia’s demographics, we will continue to channel more and more resources into this area. I ask all of you, colleagues, including both the Government and the Federal Assembly, to think about it and suggest solutions.

Colleagues, solving our demographic problems, increasing life expectancy and reducing mortality rates are directly related to eradicating poverty. Allow me to remind you that in 2000, there were more than 40 million people living below the poverty line. Now there are about 19 million, but this is still too many, too many. However, there was a time when their number dropped to 15 million, and now it has grown a little again. We must certainly focus our attention on this — on combating poverty.

The World Bank said in December that the number of poor people in Russia decreased by 1.1 million in the first two quarters of 2018, but that the poverty rate remained more than 13 percent and is expected to average 12 percent over the next three years -- "still above its pre-crisis rate of 10.8 percent in 2013."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Furthermore, there are even more people facing serious financial problems than those officially living below the poverty line. They are forced to cut spending on such essentials as clothes, medicines and even food. Those most often faced with poverty are large or single parent families, families with members with disabilities, as well as single pensioners and people who cannot find a good job, a well-paid job because there are no openings or they lack qualifications.

There are many reasons for poverty, not only in our country, but also in the world, but it always literally crushes a person, dimming their life prospects. The state must help people, help them out of difficult life situations. The experience of some of our regions shows that it is possible to work effectively for this. I will name these regions: Kaluga, Ulyanovsk, Tomsk, Vologda, and Nizhny Novgorod Regions, and a number of other regions of Russia. Their experience shows that so-called social contracts can be a working mechanism of such support.

Putin is pretty vague in this section, so it will take some time to figure out exactly what he means and what the successes of these regions comprise. Local media in Tomsk, however, noted that in 2016 the region entered the top 20 poorest regions in Russia, with 16.4 percent of the population living below the poverty line. By 2018, that figure had risen to 17.5 percent.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

How does it work and what is this all about? The state helps people find jobs and improve their skills. The state provides financial resources to families to run a household farm or to start a small business, and by the way, these are substantial resources of tens of thousands of rubles. Let me emphasise that support programmes will be tailored to meet the needs of every specific applicant. The allocation of these resources creates some obligations for the recipients: they have to go through training, find a job in the given field and provide a steady income for their family and children. Mechanisms of this kind are in place around the world and are very effective. Social contracts can change the lives of those who really want to do it.

It is estimated that more than 9 million people will be able to benefit from these support measures over a five-year period. I instruct the Government to assist the regions that are proactive in introducing social contracts and work with them on co-financing mechanisms.

Moving on, there are currently many people and families taking out loans for various purposes, including consumer loans. Of course, borrowers have to be aware of their obligations and refrain from assuming an excessive burden. That being said, anything can happen: people can lose their job or become ill. In this case, the last thing is to force people into a corner, and it is also pointless in economic terms. Additional legal guarantees are needed to protect people. I propose introducing mortgage payment holidays, as we have recently discussed in Kazan, to enable people who lose their income to suspend mortgage payments. They must get a chance to keep their home, if it is the only property they own, and postpone loan payments. This is not an easy task, and we have to understand how this can be done so as not to harm financial institutions while supporting the people. This can be done, however.

Putin does not explicitly mention the growing problem of predatory debt collectors in Russia. State media reported on February 18 that a pair of debt collectors were accused of abducting a woman's 10-month-old baby as collateral in St. Petersburg. For an overview of the problem, see this 2016 RFE/RL report.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

I also ask the Bank of Russia and law enforcement agencies to put things right without delay in the microlending segment and protect people from fraud or extortion by dishonest lenders.

Another perennial problem. The Duma was in the process of passing new laws on predatory lending back in 2017.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Let me emphasise that as we seek to overcome poverty and develop the social security net, we need to reach every family in need and understand the problems it faces. It should not be possible to refuse assistance simply because the life circumstances a person is facing are slightly inconsistent with the criteria set by a programme.

And, of course, it is necessary to be scrupulous and attentive to every detail. By way of example, and this is not a very good example for our work, I would like to say the following: pensions were adjusted for inflation under the pension reform this year. But if a pensioner’s income exceeded the subsistence rate, the social payments were no longer made at the same level. They were either cancelled altogether or reduced. As a result, the pensions were not increased at all, or the increases were much less than a pensioner expected. So many people feel cheated with good reason. Probably, many people in this hall understand what this is all about. We made payments from the regional or federal budget to achieve the subsistence level. We made adjustments for inflation and the cost of living either matched or exceeded it. So these payments were discontinued and that was it.

It was necessary to take into account all the nuances but this was left undone, and of course, this should not be allowed to happen. This injustice, and it is certainly an injustice, should be sorted immediately. Starting this year, adjustments of pensions and monthly payments should by all means be above the subsistence rate of pensioners that is established every year. In other words, the state should first bring pensions to the subsistence level and only after that make adjustments in pensions and monthly payments. Payments for the first months of this year must be recalculated and people should be paid the money due to them that they have not received.

I would like to emphasise that all those who work in the social sphere or join the government or municipal services in order to help people resolve their urgent problems, must meet the highest professional standards. I believe by and large this is the case. Of course, this is a very complicated job. We all understand that working with people every day, from morning until night, is indeed difficult. But if you have this job you should realise that it is no less important to understand people, to know what they feel, empathise, share their worries and concerns and never permit yourself arrogant attitudes or a lack of respect for people, either in word or deed. I would like you to always remember this.

Interactions with the state can be unpleasant; Putin seems eager to change the people's perception of the government by urging public employees to be respectful.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Colleagues,

The next important subject is healthcare. I know that, on the one hand, its current state seems to be improving, and medical treatment is becoming more accessible. Nevertheless, many people are not satisfied. It is easy to understand the reasons for this. As a rule, people judge the healthcare system by its primary component, that is, outpatient clinics and paramedic stations. People voice complaints with regard to their work. Quite often, they have to wait many days to see a specialist, and it is impossible to quickly undergo the required tests free of charge. People in remote communities are even having trouble getting appointments with medical personnel. Yes, the number of paramedic stations and mobile medical units continues to increase, but people in areas where there are no such facilities care nothing about the overall statistics.

Moscow continues to be the center of health care in Russia. To take just one example, when a baby was rescued in January from a collapsed apartment block in Magnitogorsk (a city of more than 400,000 people or about the size of New Orleans in the United States), he was sent to a hospital in Moscow, some 1,700 kilometers away. Luckily, he seems to have made a full recovery.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

I want to emphasise that medical treatment should become accessible for everyone by the end of 2020 in all populated areas across Russia without exception and for all citizens, regardless of their place of residence. For your information, an additional 1,590 outpatient clinics and paramedic stations are to be built or renovated in 2019–2020, and I hope that this will be accomplished.

Today, a number of regions are implementing the Thrifty Outpatient Clinic project. As a result, the waiting time to get an appointment and see a doctor is reduced three or four times over, on the average. I have visited such outpatient clinics, and they are operating very well. Much better conditions are created for people with disabilities and for parents with children. Unfortunately, there are very few such outpatient clinics so far; they are rather an exception than the rule all across the nation.

Considering the best regional practices, and, I repeat, there are such practices, I hereby instruct the Government to approve the high standards of thrifty outpatient clinics by the end of the year and their certification regulations. Next year, you have to team up with the regions to introduce mechanisms incentivising managers and medical personnel to improve the quality of their work. First of all, we have to completely convert all paediatric outpatient clinics to new standards already in 2021. Please note that the sign “Thrifty Outpatient Clinic” is not what counts. Most importantly, people should at long last perceive the state’s respectful and truly considerate attitude towards their health.

Improving IT penetration in healthcare will make it more accessible. Online links between medical institutions, pharmacies, doctors and patients must be streamlined over the next three years. Let me add that social security medical assessment boards must be finally included into this digital network in order to free elderly people, people with disabilities and families with children from waiting lists and the need to produce various certificates that are often useless.

Primary care is understaffed. To address this matter, comprehensive efforts to develop medical education should be accompanied by initiatives that produce immediate results. In this connection, I propose removing age restrictions for the Country Doctor programme so that professionals over the age of 50 can also receive a one-time payment when moving to a rural area or a small city: 1,000,000 rubles for doctors and 500,000 rubles for paramedics.

The most complex surgery is currently performed not only at federal, but also at regional clinics and centres using the most advanced equipment. At the same time, patient recovery is also critical. We have never had a system of this kind, but we have to start with something. A lot has to be done in this area. Let us begin by creating at least two world-class recovery facilities for children, just as we did with perinatal centres, and proceed from there.

In my last year’s Address, I proposed a programme for fighting cancer. At least 1 trillion roubles will be allocated to this effect over the next six years. This is about providing timely, effective and accessible treatment, using advanced technologies that are effective in most cases and enable people to overcome this dangerous disease. Today, the leukaemia recovery rate for children exceeds 80 percent, and for certain types of cancer, more than 90 percent of patients recover. Not that long ago, in the mid-1990s, this disease was almost untreatable and only 10–20 percent of children could be saved. Russia lacked both the technology and capabilities at the time. In many cases, the only option was to turn to foreign clinics. Those who could afford it did so.

We were aware of how tragic this situation was, which prompted us to focus on improving cancer treatment for children, developing oncohaematology, using the capabilities offered by our research institutions, the healthcare system, and worked proactively with our foreign partners (some doctors simply moved from Germany to Moscow, and spent a lot of time here, and probably still do), which yielded results.

We will continue working to overhaul the system of cancer care. Early detection is of crucial importance. In fact, we have revived the system of health screening and regular medical check-ups. These have to include cancer screening. It has to be made obligatory. People must have the opportunity to make appointments remotely, to choose a suitable time for visiting an outpatient clinic, including in the evening or at the weekend, so that the check-up can be carried out without any additional formalities.

Next, over the next few years we must create a number of new areas combining healthcare with social services. Thus, we must overhaul the system of assistance for people who need long-term help at medical facilities or at home, adjust this system to the needs of specific families and individuals, support people with their everyday needs by assigning district nurses or carers, or training relatives in medical or other necessary skills. The application of these recipient-oriented principles of assistance began last year in Volgograd, Kostroma, Novgorod, Pskov, Ryazan and Tula regions. We must introduce them throughout the country within a timeframe of four years.

Palliative care is a matter of not only medical but also of social, public and moral concern. According to the available information, some 800,000 people need this assistance, and volunteers have told me that the figure is around one million. As you know, in January I visited a children’s hospice in St Petersburg, where we discussed this matter. I know that yesterday the State Duma adopted in the second reading amendments to the legislation on palliative care. I would like work on this law to be completed as soon as possible. We will then monitor its application so we can promptly make amendments, taking into account the opinions of volunteers, whom I have mentioned, doctors, carers, members of the public and religious associations and benefactors, that is, everyone who have long been providing heartfelt palliative care.

Colleagues, people have increasingly high demands on environmental safety issues. Perhaps, the most painful topic is municipal waste. If you remember, it came up for the first time during one of my Direct Lines. Yes, we have probably neglected the waste disposal problems for maybe a hundred years, which means we have never paid attention to them. Many landfills are overfilled because waste has been accumulating there for decades. The landfills have turned into real mountains of garbage near residential areas.

By the way, I am also interested to know how you issued permits for the construction of residential neighbourhoods next to these dumps and landfills. Didn’t you think of that? You should have. I urge the representatives of the authorities at all levels: pretending that nothing is happening, turning away, brushing aside people’s needs is absolutely unacceptable. These issues are difficult, of course, but difficult issues must also be addressed.

This year, the regions began adopting a new system of solid municipal waste management. However, if the only change is a rise in rubbish clearance prices – well, this is not real work; it is a sham. People need to see what they are paying for and what real changes are happening. It is necessary to restore order in this area, to get rid of shady businesses that do not bear any responsibility and only get super-profits dumping trash at random sites.

Some of the major waste-disposal companies serving Moscow and other major cities have been tied to Igor Chaika, the 30-year-old son of Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika. Activists believe this is one reason why law enforcement authorities have been so active in cracking down on the landfill protests. This 2018 RFE/RL report looked into the nexus between the Chaika businesses, the landfill protests, and corrupt Moscow prosecutors.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

We need to build a civilised and safe system of waste treatment, recycling and disposal. Surprisingly, a year ago I personally had to interfere on some matters. I had to talk to the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor’s Office several times. You know, surprisingly, I would like to say it again, almost nothing moved forward until I gave an order to station a guard there and not to let anyone in. This is the only way it works, because these shady companies, the so-called fly-by-nights, they just make quick profits and shut down their so-called business.

I ask the Russian Popular Front to ensure effective public control here, including reliance on public environmental inspectors. Their signals regarding any violations must be considered by the authorities, who must adopt specific measures. In the next two years, 30 large problem landfills within city boundaries must be closed and rehabilitated, and in six years, all the rest. At the same time, it is necessary to increase the share of waste treatment from today's 8–9 percent to 60, so as not to accumulate new millions of tonnes of trash.

Putin referred here to a group that analysts say was established as a kind of alternative power base to the unpopular United Russia party. In deputizing the Popular Front as a kind of monitor and ordering officials to heed it, he may have two goals: 1. To improve efforts to eradicate the waste-dump problem 2. To channel influence on the issue away from angry protesters and into the hands of loyal followers.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

It is necessary to introduce stricter environmental requirements when it comes to utility services and energy and transport enterprises. In part, I am urging businesses to play a more active role in natural gas motor fuel projects, and invest in the formation of a network of fuelling stations and fuel systems using liquefied natural gas. We have enough of it, more than any other country. Indeed, this is a complicated and costly project but it should be carried out because it will produce results not only for businesses but for the people as well.

A positive effect from the industry’s transfer to the best affordable technologies and strict environmental standards should be felt by residents of major industrial centres of the country, primarily the 12 cities I mentioned in the 2018 Address. These places should be finally removed from the zone of real environmental disaster. Over a period of the next six years, the amount of polluting emissions in the air should be reduced there by no less than 20 percent.

To prevent anyone from the temptation of dodging the implementation of this job, it is necessary to strictly monitor industrial and other companies responsible for this, to map out the specific steps they should take to minimise environmental damage, and to register all this in a law on emission quotas. I know all too well what this is all about. I know that fairly influential lobbyists are trying to impede this draft law as much as they can. I know their arguments very well too: the need to preserve jobs and a complicated economic situation.

But this cannot go on endlessly in this manner. It must not. Let me recall that in making such decisions we should be guided by the interests of the people of Russia rather than corporate interests or interests of some individuals. Colleagues, please pass this law during the spring session.

Finding solutions for environmental problems is the job of our researchers and people in industry. Each of us is responsible for this. I am urging young people, among others, to take a more active part in this work. We must hand over to the future generations an environmentally safe country and preserve Russia’s natural potential as well as its specially protected areas. This year new national parks will open in the republics of Daghestan, Komi and Sakha (Yakutia), Altai Territory and Chelyabinsk Region. However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that many specially protected areas do not yet have precise borders and their regulations are not observed.

Putin has said this before, with similarly little detail as to how to go about it.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

I have instructed the Ministry of Natural Resources to conduct a detailed audit. All sanctuaries must be registered in the cadastre. It is also necessary to adopt a law according to which only environmental tourism can take place in nature reserves, without any withdrawal of territories, wood cutting or major construction work. Naturally, it is necessary to take into account the interests of the locals but these issues should be resolved in a package.

Putin expressed irritation here at what he says was the need for his personal intervention, but his surprise is surprising, as critics say he has fostered a top-down system as well as the image of himself as the go-to guy for the Russian people.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Colleagues, the number of students from small towns and remote areas studying at the best Moscow and regional universities is increasing. According to international assessments, our elementary, middle and high school students demonstrate good results in the humanities and hard sciences. We can see it ourselves, based on the results of contests and various student competitions. All this is an indicator of qualitative changes in our school education.

Another "change" in Russia's educational system, activists say, is that schools are increasingly being used by the authorities to monitor the political activity of children and to label protesters as "fascists" or "traitors".

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

However, despite all these achievements, we must not overlook the obvious problems in this crucial area. The share of schools with modern study conditions has increased from 12 percent in 2000 (only 12 percent) to 85 percent in 2018. But even today, some 200,000 children still go to schools where there is no proper heating, water supply and sewage system. Yes, it is less than 1.5 percent of all schoolchildren, but when their parents see these conditions, any words about justice and equal opportunities only irritate them. I want to draw the attention of the heads of the regions where poorly equipped schools still exist. This problem can be completely resolved within two years. We can do it. I know that the Government is thinking about it and making certain decisions. I am asking you to support the regions that lack their own resources.

Last month the regional rights ombudsman in the Kemerovo region reported that children there had been "fainting from hunger" in class. "Some children go to lunch at school, but others sit in their classrooms and do not eat lunch," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

When in 2006 we started providing internet connections to schools, the technology was completely different. You know, it seemed like a real breakthrough. And it was indeed a breakthrough at the time. Right now, this technology seems ancient, and we have new tasks to resolve. By the end of 2021, all Russian schools must have a high-speed internet connection rather than just a connection. Let me remind you that in 2006, when schools were being hooked up to the internet, the recommended speed was 128 kbps. Now we need 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps, which is at least 400 times higher. This will help our kids to gain access to lessons and lectures by prominent teachers, to contests and Olympiads; it will allow them to significantly expand their capabilities and get involved in online projects with their fellow students from other regions and countries. The content of educational programmes must also change. The national standards and programmes must reflect the priorities of the country’s science and technology development, while the federal lists of recommended textbooks must include the best of the best books.

Putin does not discuss how this initiative would jibe with the government's accelerating effort to cut off the Russian Internet from the rest of the world.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In practice, the best of the best, when it comes to textbooks, means "the most patriotic."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Of course, human resources are the most important issue. I have already spoken today about expanding the Country Doctor programme. I propose starting a similar programme for education, the Country Teacher. Teachers who decide to move to smaller towns and villages will receive a one-time payment of one million rubles.

We must work consistently to strengthen the common environment of education and culture. The culture and education centres in Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Vladivostok and Sevastopol will open no later than in 2023. Our leading museums and theatres will be represented there, and branches of art schools will start working there already next year. The demand for a rich cultural environment is very high, primarily in the regions, where a great number of talented and committed people are working.

I propose greatly expanding assistance to local cultural initiatives, that is, projects dealing with local history, crafts and the preservation of the historical heritage of our peoples. For example, additional allocations can be made towards this from the Presidential Grants Fund. In addition, we will allocate over 17 billion rubles within the Culture national project for the construction and renovation of rural culture clubs and over 6 billion rubles for supporting culture centres in Russia’s small towns.

I would like to remind you that medical and educational institutions are exempt from profit tax, but only until January 1, 2020. I propose making this incentive of unlimited duration and also extending it to the regional and municipal museums, theatres and libraries. By the way, this will allow them to save some 4 billion rubles, which they will invest in development or will use to raise salaries. And lastly, this measure will encourage private investment in local cultural establishments.

Colleagues, I would like the heads of regions to ensure that salaries in education, healthcare, culture and other public sectors are kept on a par with the average wage in the given region’s economy. Colleagues, this is very important. I keep talking about this at all my meetings. We must not lower this standard. At the same time, the average wage in the economy must grow. Over 40 million people who work in the public and defence sectors and are non-working pensioners receive fixed payments. These payments must grow together with the inflation at the least. I ask the Government to take this into account.

More than 70 million people work in manufacturing, agriculture or the services or are small business owners. The state of Russia’s economy has a direct bearing on their income, wellbeing and confidence in the future. The primary tool for achieving steady wage increases is to promote quality employment and free enterprise, qualified, well-paid jobs in all regions, including both traditional and new sectors. High economic growth rates are essential. This is the only way to overcome poverty and ensure steady and perceptible increases in income. This is the key to success. As soon as in 2021, Russia’s economic growth rate must exceed 3 percent and stay above the global average afterwards. This objective should not be discarded.

The World Bank said in December that Russia's growth prospects for 2018-2020 "remain modest, forecast at 1.5 percent to 1.8" but that "higher-than-expected oil prices could favorably affect the growth forecast." It added that "various government initiatives could double Russia's potential growth rate to 3% by 2028."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

The Government and the Central Bank are once again tasked with complying with the target inflation rate. I have already said this, and we knew that this would happen when we put aside financial resources for the national projects. This was an expected outcome, and now we need to make sure that the situation gets back to normal. We can do this. As I said, the Government and the Central Bank must ensure that the inflation targets are met and create a favourable macroeconomic environment for facilitating growth in general. We have a strong financial safety cushion.

I have something positive to share with you. For the first time ever, our reserves fully cover not only the sovereign debt, which is quite small, but also private borrowings. These funds are at work, and investment of the National Welfare Fund generates budget revenue. Therefore, I would like to address those of our colleagues who constantly criticise the Government, its financial and economic ministries and ask where the money went and where we invested it. We set a target to reach a certain level, after which we can use these funds, although cautiously so as not to cause any macroeconomic disturbances. We are about to reach this level, and are beginning to do it. The proceeds from these investments go to the federal budget. In 2018, proceeds from investing the National Welfare Fund in the amount of 70.5 billion rubles were added to the budget.

To achieve high growth rates, it is also necessary to resolve systemic problems in the economy. I will highlight four priorities here.

The first one is faster growth in labour productivity, primarily based on new technologies and digitalisation; the development of competitive industries and, as a result, an increase in non-primary exports by more than 50 percent in six years.

The second one is to improve the business climate and the quality of national jurisdiction, so that no one moves their operations to other jurisdictions, to ensure that everything is reliable and runs like clockwork. Growth in investment should increase by 6–7 percent in 2020. Achieving this level will be one of the key criteria for evaluating the Government’s work.

The third priority is removing infrastructural constraints for economic development and for unlocking the potential of our regions.

And the fourth thing is training modern personnel, of course, and creating powerful scientific and technological foundations.

Now I would like to expand on our specific tasks in these fields.

A colossal guaranteed demand for industrial and high-tech products is being formed in Russia, I can say this without any exaggeration. So the words I would like to use – we are faced with historical opportunities for a qualitative growth of Russian business, mechanical engineering and machine-tool making, microelectronics, IT-industry, and other industries. The national projects alone include – just think of it – 6 trillion rubles worth of procurement plans for medical and construction equipment, instruments, telecommunications systems, and systems for housing and public utilities. And these resources should work here in Russia.

So I am urging the Government, the regions, the representatives of state-owned companies I see here in this room – you certainly want to buy all the most modern equipment and as inexpensively as possible. Naturally, everyone wants to be and should be competitive, but wherever possible, you need to rely on our producers, on domestic ones. We must find them, and even work together with them. Of course, there must be a competitive environment, but we already have the tools to support Russian manufacturers. We must not forget about these tools, and use them.

I would like to emphasise that access to state contracts must be equal (at least for our own, for national companies), and the orders should go to those who prove their sustainability with hard work and results, with willingness to change, to introduce advanced technology and increase labour productivity, and offer the best competitive products.

Corruption in the state tenders system is a massive problem in Russia. In 2016, Forbes magazine reported that four of the top five recipients of state tenders -- with some $12.8 billion in state orders -- were prominent members of Putin's inner circle, including Kirill Shamalov, who is believed to be married to Putin's youngest daughter.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

As concerns the defence industry, we must use our current capacities for diversification, to expand civil production. Colleagues understand what I am talking about here. There are certain targets for each year. And they must be achieved, no matter what.

And of course, now is the time for more daring initiatives, for creating businesses and production companies, for promoting new products and services. This wave of technological development allows companies to grow and win markets very quickly. There are already examples of successful companies, innovative companies. We need many more of them, including in such fields as artificial intelligence, Big Data, the Internet of Things and robotics.

I am instructing the Government to create the most comfortable conditions for private investment in technological startups and to involve development institutions in their support. I am asking members of parliament to promptly pass the laws that are most crucial for creating the legal framework of the new digital economy, laws that will allow to close civil deals and raise funds using digital technology, to develop e-commerce and services. The entire Russian legislation must be geared up to reflect the new technological reality. These laws must not restrict the development of innovative and promising industries but push this development forward.

The most prominent piece of legislation involving the Internet at the moment is a bill that backers -- who are not champions of the digital economy -- say is designed to ensure the autonomous operation of the Internet in Russia if access to servers abroad is cut off. Critics fear it's aimed at increasing state control over web traffic, facilitating censorship, and stifling dissent.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

The most crucial indicator of a business’s efficiency and competitiveness lies in expanding export and entering external markets. The success of our agricultural industry is, of course, a good example of such development. Our agricultural export increased by 19.4 percent in 2018 reaching $25.8 billion. In 2024, we must reach $45 billion. Incidentally, we are not only one of the largest wheat exporters (last year we exported 44 million tonnes). We have at least one more significant achievement. Thanks to the developments of Russian researchers we are no longer dependent on other countries for wheat seeds. Experts will confirm how critically important this is. Russia must have the entire range of its own advanced agricultural technology, which must be available not only to large but also to small farms. This is literally a matter of national security and successful competition in the growing food markets.

Improving the quality of life for those who work in rural areas is a key long-term factor of the agricultural industry’s steady growth. I would like to point out to the Government that as soon as this year, they must approve a new development programme for rural territories that must be enforced as of January 1, 2020.

One more thing. I think everybody will agree that our massive natural resources constitute our natural advantage. They need to be used for increasing the production of organic produce. I am instructing the Government to create a protected brand for clean products, a brand that will guarantee safety of the technology used and win the reputation of high quality both on the domestic and foreign markets. Trust me, it will be extremely popular abroad. There is hardly anything clean left there.

The Russian government, with its poor record of consumer protection and its well-established practice of using oversight agencies for political purposes, will have a hard time generating domestic or international confidence in such a "protected brand."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Colleagues, to achieve the ambitious goals facing the country, we must rid the system of everything that restricts freedom of enterprise and business initiative. Honest businesses should not face the risk of criminal or administrative prosecution. I have already noted this matter in one of my Addresses, and I have cited the relevant figures. Unfortunately, the situation has not improved much.

Indeed, Putin did address the issue in his state-of-the-nation speech last year, saying: "The Criminal Code should not serve as a tool for settling corporate disputes." But based on recent history, there's little indication the situation will change dramatically. It was more than a decade ago, after all, that then-President Dmitry Medvedev -- a Putin protege who is now prime minister -- famously said Russian law enforcement "should stop terrorizing business."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Today, almost half of all cases (45 percent) opened against entrepreneurs do not get to trial. What does this mean? This means that they were opened in a slipshod manner or under some unclear pretext. And what does this mean in practice? As a result, 130 jobs are lost on average every time a business closes down as result of an investigation. Let us think about this figure; this is becoming a major economic problem.

To again cite the GAN Business Anticorruption Portal report on Russia, "The business environment suffers from inconsistent application of laws and a lack of transparency and accountability in the public administration. Russia's regulatory inefficiency substantially increases the cost of doing business and has a negative effect on market competition.... Effective enforcement of anticorruption legislation is hindered by a politicized and corrupt judicial system." It is worth noting that Putin has nothing to say about the fundamental problem of the corrupt judiciary.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The business community points to a number of legislative and law enforcement problems. I agree that we need to closely analyse the criteria under which all employees of a company can be considered to be part of a group that is guilty of collusion just through the fact of working for that company. To be honest, this is complete nonsense, but, unfortunately, it happens time and again. And this leads to a stricter detention during the investigation and a more substantial penalty later on. Additionally, we need to strictly limit the grounds for extending the term of detention during the investigation of so-called economic criminal cases. Today, this sometimes happens without any grounds, simply because the investigators had no time to conduct the required expert checks or as a result of delays in the investigation.

This line comes just days after prominent U.S. investor Michael Calvey was placed under arrest by a Moscow court on fraud charges. Calvey and his investment fund, Baring Vostok, deny any wrongdoing. Several prominent Kremlin-connected Russians have offered support for Calvey. Former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, a longtime close associate of Putin, said he considered Calvey's arrest "an emergency for the [Russian] economy."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Two paragraphs earlier, Putin said there were too many unfounded criminal investigations of businesses. Now he suggests increasing the number of investigators? A strange solution.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

We have discussed this matter with the Prosecutor General and the President of the Supreme Court. This is what happens: a person is kept behind bars, and he has not been summoned for questioning for several months. The prosecutor wants to know why he had not been questioned, and they tell him that the investigator was on holiday. Of course, investigators, especially those at the Interior Ministry, handle a tidal wave of criminal cases, and we need to do something about that, we need to take a closer look at this matter. Perhaps we should set aside additional resources and increase the number of investigators. Nevertheless, how can this be explained? A person is kept behind bars while the investigator has left on holiday and has not questioned him for several months. This should not happen, we need to sort this out. I ask the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor General’s Office to analyse all these problems once again and to submit their proposals.

I suggest that our business associations and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives create a special digital platform – in fact, they themselves have advanced this initiative – which entrepreneurs will use to make public any instances of pressure on business and to demand a formal court hearing.

As Financial Times journalist Max Seddon noted on Twitter, one of this organization’s directors is Russian businessman Artyom Avetisyan, a shareholder of Vostochny Bank. Calvey’s fund, Baring Vostok, is the bank's majority investor, and his lawyer says the charges stem from a corporate dispute between the fund and Vostochny. Calvey's lawyer specifically named Avetisyan as one of Baring Vostok's opponents in the conflict. Avetisyan has links to Russian security services.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

I urge the heads of law enforcement agencies not to be wary of this. This initiative will serve as an additional support, so that senior officials at these agencies will promptly receive the objective information they need to make decisions, at least at the departmental level. I ask the Government and the business community to discuss the technological solutions and the legal framework for implementing this initiative, and the law enforcement agencies – the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee – to coordinate regulations for working with the entrepreneurs’ complaints, including deadlines. This platform must start working, at least in pilot mode, by the end of the year.

Next, the Government has proposed overhauling the regulatory framework. This is good, and we must give all-round support to this. However, I believe that this is not enough. We must take even more radical steps. Indeed, let us draw the line and suspend all the existing regulatory laws and departmental regional orders, letters and instructions as of January 1, 2021. In the two years until then, we must update the regulatory laws together with the business community, retaining only those documents that satisfy current requirements and shelving the rest.

When we discussed this issue, many of our colleagues said honestly that they were terrified. Yes, this is scary, but the problem does exist. It will not be an easy job. The files are really thick in some areas and departments. They have been piling up for decades since the Soviet era, or even “as far back as Ochakov and the Crimean war.” [The quote is from Alexander Griboyedov’s Woe from Wit written in 1824.] I am not referring to the year 2014, of course. (Laughter) Some of these documents go back to the time of Alexander Griboyedov or even before him. So much has been written and regulated. But frankly, I doubt that even the personnel of these agencies know everything that is written in these documents. Hence, we must complete their analysis within two years. There is nothing to fear. We must roll up our sleeves and do it, keeping or updating only the documents we really need to properly organise our activities.

Putin often makes wry little jokes in his public appearances. This one was at the expense of Ukraine and the 100+ countries that do not recognize Crimea as Russian after its takeover in 2014. There was no war over the peninsula at that time, but one of Russia's stated pretexts for its seizure was what Moscow claimed was the threat of violence by Kyiv and its backers. Ukraine and Western governments say there was no such threat.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Colleagues, infrastructure upgrades need to be accelerated using state-of-the-art technology. This is essential for enhancing a country's connectivity, and especially for Russia, the world’s largest country with its vast territory. This is essential for strengthening statehood, unleashing the country’s potential and driving national economic growth.

According to this report, more than 100 Russian bridges collapsed in 2017. The country has some 42,000 bridges, about half of which "require urgent repair." The report also notes that in 2002, Putin set the goal of having no dangerous bridges in the country by 2010.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

This year, the railway section of the Crimean Bridge will be launched, and will become a powerful impetus. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the construction and railway workers. We saw that a bypass railway was built near Krasnodar alongside an approach railway to this junction from the Caucasus coast. As I have said, trains will begin using the Crimean Bridge in 2019, creating a powerful development driver for Crimea and Sevastopol.

In addition to this, the expressway linking Moscow and St Petersburg is expected to be completed, creating new business opportunities and jobs for people living in Novgorod, Tver, Leningrad and Moscow regions.

The Moscow-Petersburg expressway was started in 2010. It was supposed to be completed in time for the World Cup in the summer of 2018. However, the completion date has been pushed back to September 2019. Construction proceeded over the strong objections of local residents in the Moscow region who lamented the destruction of the Khimki forest. One key leader of those protests, Yevgenia Chirikova, was forced to flee Russia after threats from the authorities that her children might be taken from her. In April 2013, Khimki newspaper editor Mikhail Beketov died from injuries sustained five years earlier when he was savagely beaten over, supporters say, his newspaper's stand against the highway.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

More than 60 airports will benefit from upgrades over the next six years, including international airports in Khabarovsk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

In 2025, the throughput capacity of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and Trans-Siberian Railway will grow 1.5 times, reaching 210 million tonnes, which is very important for the development of Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

Let me reiterate that key indicators related to social and economic development and quality of life in all Russia’s Far Eastern regions are expected to exceed the national average. This is a national cause, and a major priority of our efforts to promote Eastern Siberia and the Far East as strategic territories. All agencies have to constantly keep this in mind.

Out of sight, out of mind: As he seeks to bolster relations with China, Japan, and others in Asia, Putin reminds officials in Moscow not to forget about the Far East.

  • Steve Gutterman
  • Editor

Here is an RFE/RL feature on the government's efforts to develop the Far East.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

In September, we will have a meeting in Vladivostok to discuss what each of the federal agencies has done and intends to undertake for the Far East. All the plans for building and upgrading roads, railways, sea ports, air service and communications must prioritise regional development, including promoting these regions as travel destinations.

There is enormous interest in Russia, our culture, nature and historical monuments. Taking into consideration the success of the World Cup, I propose making greater use of e-visas and thinking more broadly about how to streamline visa processing for tourists coming to Russia.

Next. This year we must adopt a master plan for developing the infrastructure of a digital economy, including telecommunications networks, as well as data storage and processing capacities. Here we need to look ahead as well. The task for the next few years is to provide universal access to high-speed internet and start using 5G communications networks.

To achieve a revolution in communications, navigation and systems for remote sensing of the Earth, we must dramatically increase the capabilities of our satellite group. Russia has unique technology for this, but such tasks require a fundamental upgrade of the entire space industry. I am instructing Roscosmos and the Moscow Government to establish a National Space Centre. My colleagues came to me and told me about it. This is a good project is designed to unite relevant organisations, design bureaus and prototype production facilities, and to support scientific research and the training of personnel.

We are seeing that global competition is increasingly shifting to science, technology and education. Just recently, it seemed inconceivable that Russia could make not just a breakthrough but also a high-tech breakthrough in defence. This was difficult, complex work. Much had to be restored or started from scratch It was necessary to break new ground and find bold, unique solutions. Nevertheless, this was done. It was done by our engineers, workers and scientists, including very young people that grew up with these projects. Let me repeat that I know all the details of this large-scale effort and I am completely justified in saying, for instance, that the development of the Avangard strategic hypersonic glide vehicle is tantamount to the launching of the world's first artificial satellite. And not just in terms of enhancing the country’s defence capability and security, although this is the primary goal, but in influencing the consolidation of our scientific potential and the development of unique technological assets.

Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based researcher specializing in Russia's nuclear arsenal, told RFE/RL this week that the Avangard "appears to be reasonably successful and will probably be deployed next year as expected."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

At one time, the nuclear defence project gave the country nuclear power. The construction of a missile shield that started with the launch of the world's first artificial satellite allowed the country to begin peaceful space exploration. Today, we need to use the personnel, knowledge, competences and materials we have acquired from developing the next generation of weapons to produce the same kind of results for civilian applications.

We have yet to implement new ambitious scientific and technological programmes. An Executive Order on genetic research has already been signed, and I propose launching a similar large-scale programme at the national level on artificial intelligence. In the middle of the next decade, we should be among the leaders in these science and technology areas, which, of course, will determine the future of the world and the future of Russia.

To implement such projects, we need to accelerate the development of an advanced scientific infrastructure. Incidentally, the reactor PIK, a mega-science class research unit was recently launched in Leningrad Region. Over the next 20 years, it will be one of the world’s most powerful sources for neutron research, enabling scientists to conduct unique research in physics, biology, and chemistry, and to develop new drugs, diagnostic tools, and new materials.

For the first time in decades, Russian shipyards will break ground for several modern research vessels capable of working in all strategic areas, including the Arctic seas and the Antarctic, exploring the shelf and the natural resources of the World Ocean.

To promote powerful technological development, we need to build a modern research and development model. This is why we are setting up research and education centres in the regions that will integrate all levels of education with the potential of research facilities and business. Within three years, centres like this should be established in 15 regions in the Russian Federation, the first five this year. Three of them – in Tyumen and Belgorod Regions and Perm Territory – are close to completion and are to open this year.

We need specialists capable of working at advanced production facilities, developing and applying breakthrough technology solutions. Therefore, we need to ensure a broad introduction of updated curricula at all levels of professional education, to organise personnel training for the industries that are still being formed.

At the end of August, Russia will host the WorldSkills world championships – so let us wish our team success. Their success is significant for increasing the prestige of the skilled labor occupation. Relying on the WorldSkills movement experience, we will accelerate the modernisation of secondary vocational education, which includes installing modern equipment at more than 2,000 shops in colleges and technical schools by 2022.

Passion for a future career and creativity is formed at a young age. In the next three years, thanks to the development of children’s technology parks, quantoriums and education centres for computer skills, natural sciences and the humanities, around one million new spots in extracurricular education programmes will be created. All children must have access.

The Sirius educational centre in Sochi is becoming a true constellation. The plan was for centres supporting gifted children, based on its model, to open in all regions by 2024. But our colleagues said they can finish this work early, within two years. Such proactive efforts deserve praise.

This academy was established by a foundation co-created by Russian cellist Sergei Roldugin, a friend of Putin's who was alleged in the Panama Papers expose to have controlled offshore firms through which some $2 billion secretly flowed, including to entities and individuals close to Putin. The Panama Papers reports were denounced by Putin as a "provocation." Putin said he was "proud" of Roldugin, claiming the cellist "has spent nearly all the money he has earned on buying musical instruments abroad and he brought them to Russia" for musicians. Roldugin’s foundation has received substantial funding from some of Russia’s wealthiest people, and it is set to receive 6.3 billion rubles ($96.1 million) from the Russian budget over the next three years, the Russian newspaper RBK reported in October.

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

I think every national project has reserves for increasing the pace. I expect that our companies and the business community will get involved in such projects as Ticket to the Future that provides school pupils in their sixth year and above with the opportunity to discover their career interests and intern at actual companies, research centres and other places.

I want to speak directly to our young people. Your talents, energy and creative abilities are among Russia’s strongest competitive advantages. We understand and greatly value this. We have created an entire system of projects and personal growth competitions in which every young person, from school to university age, can show what they are made of. These include ProeKTOriYA, My First Business, I Am A Professional, Russian Leaders and many others. I want to stress that all this is being created for young people to take advantage of these opportunities. I urge you to take a chance and use them, be bold, realise your dreams and plans, do something of value for yourself, your family and your country.

Many young Russians do not view a future in their homeland as optimistically as Putin does. Here are profiles of some of the nearly 200,000 people per year who permanently leave.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Colleagues, Russia has been and always will be a sovereign and independent state. This is a given. It will either be that, or will simply cease to exist. We must clearly understand this. Without sovereignty, Russia cannot be a state. Some countries can do this, but not Russia.

Building relations with Russia means working together to find solutions to the most complex matters instead of trying to impose solutions. We make no secret of our foreign policy priorities. These include strengthening trust, countering global threats, promoting cooperation in the economy and trade, education, culture, science and technology, as well as facilitating people-to-people contact. These tenets underpin our work within the UN, the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as within the Group of 20, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

We believe in the importance of promoting closer cooperation within the Union State of Russia and Belarus, including close foreign policy and economic coordination. Together with our integration partners within the Eurasian Economic Union, we will continue creating common markets and outreach efforts. This includes implementing the decisions to coordinate the activities of the EAEU with China’s Belt and Road initiative on the way to a greater Eurasian partnership.

Russia’s equal and mutually beneficial relations with China currently serve as an important factor of stability in international affairs and in terms of Eurasian security, offering a model of productive economic cooperation. Russia attaches importance to realising the potential of the special privileged strategic partnership with India. We will continue to promote political dialogue and economic cooperation with Japan. Russia stands ready to work with Japan on finding mutually acceptable terms for signing a peace treaty. We intend to promote deeper ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

We also hope that the European Union and the major European countries will finally take actual steps to put political and economic relations with Russia back on track. People in these countries are looking forward to cooperation with Russia, which includes corporations, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, and European businesses in general. It goes without saying that this would serve our common interests.

The EU, in conjunction with the United States, has hit Russia with waves of sanctions over Moscow’s seizure and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in March 2018, among other issues. There's no sign that these sanctions will be lifted anytime soon, though German Chancellor Angela Merkel said

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

Putin omits all the reasons why relations with Europe are strained, so it might be useful to recap some of them: Russian interference in numerous elections and referendums in EU countries over the last decade; Russia's active disinformation campaigns across the EU; Russian-based cyberattacks targeting numerous EU countries; provocative Russian military flights in and around EU and NATO airspace; Russia's alleged interference with GPS navigation systems in Scandinavia; Russia's continued deployment of "peacekeepers" in Moldova despite that country's repeated requests that Russian troops be replaced with UN peacekeepers; Russia's 2008 war against Georgia and its continued occupation of some 20 percent of Georgian territory; Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region; Russia's intense involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine, which the ICC in November 2016 ruled "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation"; Russia's obstructionism in implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the Ukraine conflict; Russia's role in the 2014 downing of a passenger airliner over Ukraine that killed 298 people; Russia's alleged poisoning of Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006; and Russia's alleged attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

The unilateral withdrawal of the USA from the INF Treaty is the most urgent and most discussed issue in Russian-American relations. This is why I am compelled to talk about it in more detail. Indeed, serious changes have taken place in the world since the Treaty was signed in 1987. Many countries have developed and continue to develop these weapons, but not Russia or the USA – we have limited ourselves in this respect, of our own free will. Understandably, this state of affairs raises questions. Our American partners should have just said so honestly rather than make far-fetched accusations against Russia to justify their unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty.

U.S. officials have said Russia started developing the missile in question secretly in the late 2000s, but only went public with their accusations in 2014. More recently, U.S. officials have offered up new, more specific data on the missile system, and even shared them with NATO allies, to garner their support.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

It would have been better if they had done what they did in 2002 when they walked away from the ABM Treaty and did so openly and honestly. Whether that was good or bad is another matter. I think it was bad, but they did it and that is that. They should have done the same thing this time, too. What are they doing in reality? First, they violate everything, then they look for excuses and appoint a guilty party. But they are also mobilising their satellites that are cautious but still make noises in support of the USA. At first, the Americans began developing and using medium-range missiles, calling them discretionary “target missiles” for missile defence. Then they began deploying Mk-41 universal launch systems that can make offensive combat use of Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles possible.

The actual verb Putin used here caused quite a stir among Russia's chattering classes. The word -- in Russian "подхрюкивать" -- is more accurately translated as "oink along," like pigs (the Kremlin opted to leave out the pig context in its official English translation). In major speeches and public appearances, Putin frequently deploys a colorful -- sometimes bawdy -- phrase or metaphor, buttressing his carefully crafted image as a tough-talking man of the people. Previous examples include his pledge to "waste" terrorists "in the outhouse," and his portrayal of opposition activists as "jackals" who "scavenge" for handouts "at foreign embassies."

  • Carl Schreck
  • Enterprise Editor

The Kremlin has honed in on the Mk-41 launch system, which is used in the Aegis Ashore missile-defense system that is based in Romania. Moscow argues the launcher is in violation of the INF Treaty, because, it says, it can be used to launch INF-capable missiles. Washington has repeatedly denied that assertion. Moreover, it says the Mk-41 system deployed on land is only capable of launching defensive interceptor missiles, such as the SM-3, not Tomahawk missiles.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

I am talking about this and using my time and yours because we have to respond to the accusations that are leveled at us. But having done everything I have just described, the Americans openly and blatantly ignored the provisions envisaged by articles 4 and 6 of the INF Treaty. According to Item 1, Article VI (I am quoting): “Each Party shall eliminate all intermediate-range missiles and the launchers of such missiles… so that… no such missiles, launchers… shall be possessed by either party.” Paragraph 1 of Article VI provides that (and I quote) “upon entry into force of the Treaty and thereafter, neither Party may produce or flight-test any intermediate-range missile, or produce any stages or launchers of such missiles.” End of quote.

Using medium-range target missiles and deploying launchers in Romania and Poland that are fit for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, the US has openly violated these clauses of the Treaty. They did this some time ago. These launchers are already stationed in Romania and nothing happens. It seems that nothing is happening. This is even strange. This is not at all strange for us, but people should be able to see and understand it.

How are we evaluating the situation in this context? I have already said this and I want to repeat: Russia does not intend – this is very important, I am repeating this on purpose – Russia does not intend to deploy such missiles in Europe first. If they really are built and delivered to the European continent, and the United States has plans for this, at least we have not heard otherwise, it will dramatically exacerbate the international security situation, and create a serious threat to Russia, because some of these missiles can reach Moscow in just 10–12 minutes. This is a very serious threat to us. In this case, we will be forced, I would like to emphasise this, we will be forced to respond with mirror or asymmetric actions. What does this mean?

In December 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia had already deployed several batalions equipped with the missile that is allegedly in violation of the INF Treaty.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

I am saying this directly and openly now, so that no one can blame us later, so that it will be clear to everyone in advance what is being said here. Russia will be forced to create and deploy weapons that can be used not only in the areas we are directly threatened from, but also in areas that contain decision-making centres for the missile systems threatening us.

What is important in this regard? There is some new information. These weapons will fully correspond to the threats directed against Russia in their technical specifications, including flight times to these decision-making centres.

We know how to do this and will implement these plans immediately, as soon as the threats to us become real. I do not think we need any further, irresponsible exacerbation of the current international situation. We do not want this.

What would I like to add? Our American colleagues have already tried to gain absolute military superiority with their global missile defence project. They need to stop deluding themselves. Our response will always be efficient and effective.

The work on promising prototypes and weapon systems that I spoke about in my Address last year continues as scheduled and without disruptions. We have launched serial production of the Avangard system, which I have already mentioned today. As planned, this year, the first regiment of the Strategic Missile Troops will be equipped with Avangard. The Sarmat super-heavy intercontinental missile of unprecedented power is undergoing a series of tests. The Peresvet laser weapon and the aviation systems equipped with Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles proved their unique characteristics during test and combat alert missions while the personnel learned how to operate them. Next December, all the Peresvet missiles supplied to the Armed Forces will be put on standby alert. We will continue expanding the infrastructure for the MiG-31 interceptors carrying Kinzhal missiles. The Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile of unlimited range and the Poseidon nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle of unlimited range are successfully undergoing tests.

The concept of a nuclear-powered missile alarmed many arms-control experts, who point to early U.S. efforts in the 1960s to develop a similar weapon. The U.S. effort was halted, in part, after the realization that such a missile would spew dangerous nuclear radiation all along its flight path.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

In this context, I would like to make an important statement. We did not announce it before, but today we can say that as soon as this spring the first nuclear-powered submarine carrying this unmanned vehicle will be launched. The work is going as planned.

Today I also think I can officially inform you about another promising innovation. As you may remember, last time I said we had more to show but it was a little early for that. So I will reveal little by little what else we have up our sleeves. Another promising innovation, which is successfully being developed according to plan, is Tsirkon, a hypersonic missile that can reach speeds of approximately Mach 9 and strike a target more than 1,000 km away both under water and on the ground. It can be launched from water, from surface vessels and from submarines, including those that were developed and built for carrying Kalibr high-precision missiles, which means it comes at no additional cost for us.

On a related note, I want to highlight that for the defence of Russia’s national interests, two or three years ahead of the schedule set by the state arms programme, the Russian Navy will receive seven new multipurpose submarines, and construction will begin on five surface vessels designed for the open ocean. Sixteen more vessels of this class will enter service in the Russian Navy by 2027.

The Kremlin has made submarine construction a priority for naval defense budgets in recent years, emphasizing an underwater fleet over a surface fleet. Three next-generation, Borei-class ballistic-missile submarines have entered service since 2013, with a fourth scheduled to join in 2019. Four more Borei-II-class subs are currently under construction.

  • Mike Eckel
  • Senior Correspondent

To conclude, on the unilateral withdrawal by the USA from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, here is what I would like to say. The US policy toward Russia in recent years can hardly be called friendly. Russia’s legitimate interests are being ignored, there is constant anti-Russia campaigning, and more and more sanctions, which are illegal in terms of international law, are imposed without any reason whatsoever. Let me emphasise that we did nothing to provoke these sanctions. The international security architecture that took shape over the past decades is being completely and unilaterally dismantled, all while referring to Russia as almost the main threat to the USA.

Let me say outright that this is not true. Russia wants to have sound, equal and friendly relations with the USA. Russia is not threatening anyone, and all we do in terms of security is simply a response, which means that our actions are defensive. We are not interested in confrontation and we do not want it, especially with a global power like the United States of America. However, it seems that our partners fail to notice the depth and pace of change around the world and where it is headed. They continue with their destructive and clearly misguided policy. This hardly meets the interests of the USA itself. But this is not for us to decide.

We can see that we are dealing with proactive and talented people, but within the elite, there are also many people who have excessive faith in their exceptionalism and supremacy over the rest of the world. Of course, it is their right to think what they want. But can they count? Probably they can. So let them calculate the range and speed of our future arms systems. This is all we are asking: just do the maths first and take decisions that create additional serious threats to our country afterwards. It goes without saying that these decisions will prompt Russia to respond in order to ensure its security in a reliable and unconditional manner.

I have already said this, and I will repeat that we are ready to engage in disarmament talks, but we will not knock on a locked door anymore. We will wait until our partners are ready and become aware of the need for dialogue on this matter.

We continue developing our Armed Forces and improving the intensity and quality of combat training, in part, using the experience we gained in the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. Much experience was gained by practically all the commanders of the Ground Forces, by covert operations forces and military police, warship crews, army, tactical, and strategic and military transport aviation.

I would like to emphasise again that we need peace for sustainable long-term development. Our efforts to enhance our defence capability are for only one purpose: to ensure the security of this country and our citizens so that nobody would even consider pressuring us, or launching an aggression against us.

It is undoubtedly true that Russia needs peace to develop, but it is less clear whether Putinism needs peace to survive. Since coming to power in 2000, Putin has often legitimized his authoritarian methods by stoking fears of external enemies surrounding his supposedly beleaguered country. "In the Russian case, the primacy of the state has been legitimized with reference to real or (more often) imagined threats, both internal and external," analyst Lilia Shevtsova wrote in a 2010 monograph for the Carnegie Endowment. "Those threats had to be severe enough to justify the militarization of everyday life in Russia and the subjugation of the very foundations of society to militarist goals. In short, Russia developed a unique model for the survival and reproduction of power in a permanent state of war. This situation was maintained even in peacetime...."

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

Colleagues, we are facing ambitious goals. We are approaching solutions in a systematic and consistent way, building a model of socio-economic development that will allow us to ensure the best conditions for the self-fulfillment of our people and, hence, provide befitting answers to the challenges of a rapidly changing world, and preserve Russia as a civilisation with its own identity, rooted in centuries-long traditions and the culture of our people, our values and customs. Naturally, we will only be able to achieve our goals by pooling our efforts, together in a united society, if all of us, all citizens of Russia, are willing to succeed in specific endeavours.

Putin concludes his speech with an unsubtle hint that dissent is not to be tolerated, that failing to follow the government's leadership is tantamount to fracturing the country and undermining its development. "Solidarity in striving for change," he says in the next paragraph. "A unified society, people being involved in the affairs of their country," he says in the last paragraph. But the limits of that involvement in the age of Putinism are strictly enforced.

  • Robert Coalson
  • Senior Correspondent

These parameters for development breakthroughs cannot be translated into figures or indicators, but it is these things – a unified society, people being involved in the affairs of their country, and a common confidence in our power – that play the main role in reaching success. And we will achieve this success by any means necessary.

Thank you for your attention.