At the session, the President raised the issue of the Russian regions’ participation in implementing the country’s foreign policy.
He noted that the Russian regions’ cooperation with foreign countries, primarily the CIS, was of strategic importance because of the country’s changed geopolitical situation and the appearance of a great number of new frontier regions on the map of Russia. The heads of the regions often focus on the development of foreign trade, ignoring many other pressing issues, including migration, he said.
Mr Putin stressed the need to analyse regional problems, primarily legal, organisational and methodological ones, and see what the federal centre could do to support the regions’ initiatives and ideas related to their international activities.