The President’s appeal to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation

At the beginning of his appeal to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin thanked all citizens of the country for their support and solidarity at the moments fateful for the future of the country. ‘Russia believes in itself and in the fact that it’s capable of many things and will achieve everything’, he added.

Putin called the reunion of the Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia historical and said, ‘The Crimea is of a huge civilization and sacred meaning for Russia, and the Russians will feel like this from now on and forever’.

Passing to the events in Ukraine the President emphasized again that Russia would always respect the inalienable right of every nation to its own development path, which attitude concerns Ukraine as well as any other country. Speaking about the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict he called hypocritical all talks about human rights, which are being used to justify a coup d’état in Ukraine. Regarding the present situation in the country the Russian leader said, ‘It’s not time for political intrigues; it’s time to provide the economics of Ukraine with real help for reforms’, but added that the western countries “aren’t in a hurry to do it” while Russia had recently lent $32,5-33,5 billion to the economics of Ukraine.

Regarding the western world’s sanctions the Russian President said that they were harmful for everybody, including those who had imposed them. ‘There is no point in speaking to Russia from a position of strength,’ he emphasized reminding that the containment of Russia hadn’t been invented the day before – it was carried out every time when somebody decided that Russia had become too independent. But Russia didn’t let putting itself on the path of disintegration and dismemberment on the Yugoslav scenario as it hadn’t let Hitler do it in his time.

On the matter of the international security the President stated that after the USA’s unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 in the world there appeared a threat of violation of the strategic balance of power, which was harmful for the USA as well because it created them illusion of permissiveness. ‘Russia has no intention of getting involved in a costly arms race, but it will ensure its security in the full having enough creative solutions for that,’ he added.

Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia wasn’t going to curtail its relationship with Europe and America but emphasized that the country had many strategic friends and partners in the world, adding, ‘Russia will uphold the diversity of the world; it will uphold the truth and won’t let distorting its image in the world’.

Passing to the domestic issues the President confirmed that Russia would stay open to the world to attract foreign investments and to carry out joint projects, but he also pointed out that sanctions and restrictions were just an incentive to achieve the goal of strengthening the country’s independence.

‘The relationship between business and the state should base on the philosophy of common cause,’ said Vladimir Putin adding that bureaucracy and “the habit of burying all solutions in papers” weren’t just a drag for development but a threat to democracy as well.

The President said that it was necessary to do everything possible to remove restrictions for business, to rid it of intrusive supervision and control. He also proposed to introduce supervisory holidays for small businesses, i.e. not to inspect them if they had proved reliable for three years.

Besides, Vladimir Putin proposed to fix the current tax system and not to change it for four years and spoke in favour of a full amnesty for offshore capital given that it returned to Russia.

‘Russia must close finally, turn over the offshore page in the history of the country. The best guarantee of saving capital is national jurisdiction,’ said the President.

The Russian leader called the government to ensure the control at medicine and food markets in order to remove critical dependence on foreign technologies, to focus on the domestic manufacturer and to create a coordination center which would link large projects of placing orders at Russian enterprises. According to the goal set by the President, by 2018 the level of investments should reach 25% of the country’s GDP.

The government also got a task of increasing state companies’ purchases from small and middle businesses and entering the import substitution program. ‘The reasonable import substitution is our long-term priority,’ said the President adding, ‘For three years the export of highly processed products should increase in half’.

Vladimir Putin admitted that weakening of the ruble increased the inflation risks and asked the Bank of Russia and the government to undertake strict measures against speculators on the national currency. He proposed to conduct recapitalization of the leading Russian banks and the National Welfare Fund on a condition of their lending to the real sector at affordable rates.

‘We must break out of the trap of zero growth, reach a higher economic growth than the world’s one. We must focus on productivity growth by 5%, reach the inflation rate lower than 4%,’ said the Russian leader.

In the sphere of defense the President charged the Defense Ministry and the Rosinformmonitoring to maintain control over expenditure of each ruble for defense procurement. ‘Misuse of public funds for defense contracts can be considered as a direct threat to the national security,’ he added.

In the sphere of education Vladimir Putin proposed to increase the responsibility of the teacher for the quality of work, and provide support for talented children as wealth of the nation, for which it was planned to introduce 5 thousand Presidential grants of monthly 20 thousand rubles for talented children.

‘By 2020 at least half of colleges of Russia should conduct training of specialists at the level of advanced world standards,’ added the President.

Besides, the Russian leader proposed to unite efforts of different scientific and research centers and to invite foreign specialists to provide advanced research and development.

Pointing out that the insurance medicine hadn’t worked out in the country, the President obliged the government to ensure introduction of amendments to the legislation on that score and proposed to announce 2015 a year of struggle with cardiovascular disease.

At the end of his speech Vladimir Putin emphasized that the state and society should act in the same agenda to ensure success and assured the Russian people that the country was ready to accept any challenge of time and win.