The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko, deputy prime ministers Tatyana Golikova, Alexander Novak, Alexei Overchuk, Dmitry Patrushev, Vitaly Savelyev, Marat Khusnullin and Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister – Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov, Minister for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Natural Disaster Relief Alexander Kurenkov, Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova, Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko, Minister of Transport Roman Starovoit, Minister of Energy Sergei Tsivilev, Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities Irek Fayzullin, Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources Svetlana Radionova, and Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, Chair of the State Council Commission on the Economy and Finance Alexei Teksler were also invited to take part in the meeting.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak delivered a report on the main agenda item, the launch of new national projects.
Several current issues were reviewed at the beginning of the meeting.
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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,
Today, we will have our first meeting after the long holidays. As agreed, many of our colleagues stayed in touch during the holidays, so the work never stopped.
I suggest discussing the most topical issues today. The main issue on our agenda today has to do with national projects. I would like Mr Novak, followed by Mr Teksler, to report on the launch of new national projects.
But at the outset we will talk about current issues. First of all, I would like Mr Fayzullin to tell us about the operation of our housing and utility services during the New Year holidays.
Mr Fayzullin, you have the floor.
(The Minister reported that the long holidays went without major heat supply disruptions thanks to the coordinated efforts of the utility companies and managing organisations in the regions, Rostekhnadzor, and state housing oversight bodies. He also listed the support measures used to renovate the housing and utilities sector. Last year alone, 12 programmes were implemented, and the regions upgraded more than 3,000 kilometres of utility lines. Over the year, the quality of public utilities improved for 2.5 million. The new federal project, Modernisation of Utilities Infrastructure, which is part of the Infrastructure for Life national project, will make it possible to improve the quality of services for 20 million people around the country by 2030 and annually upgrade 2.5 percent of the country’s grids.
Irek Fayzullin reported that the Government annually provided system-wide support to the regions during the heating season. In compliance with the President’s instructions, the Government keeps under control the situation in the reunited regions, as well as in the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions. The sponsor regions have put together 192 emergency recovery crews comprising 1,148 specialists and almost 400 pieces of equipment in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.
According to the Minister, a systemic approach to the heating season has been put in place. There are sufficient volumes of fuel reserves, equipment and personnel on the ground are in a standby mode. The situation is being monitored on a daily basis in cooperation with regional authorities.
Answering the President’s questions, Irek Fayzullin spoke about upgrading drinking water supply facilities. Vladimir Putin asked him to keep these issues under special control, as drinking water is a particularly acute issue in some regions.
Further, at the request of the President, Minister of Energy Sergei Tsivilev reported on the fuel and energy complex’ operations during the holidays. According to the Minister, 84 technological malfunctions – almost half of last year’s number – took place during the holidays and briefly affected end consumers. Mass-scale power supply restrictions were mainly caused by bad weather and affected about 50,000 consumers in five regions. It took on average about six hours to restore power. As many as 23,000 emergency recovery crews numbering over 150,000 people, and about 60,000 pieces of special equipment were on high alert during the holidays. Additional forces and means were tasked with restoring damaged energy facilities in the new and border regions. The Minister expressed special gratitude to the industry employees who risked their lives in order to restore power supply to people and social facilities in those regions.
The Minister emphasised that the energy sector will do everything necessary to ensure reliable power supply and pass the heating season successfully).
Vladimir Putin: For my part, I would also like to thank the employees of all utility services who worked during the holidays to promptly ensure emergency maintenance.
As we all know, the employees of these agencies, ministries, departments, and local authorities keep working while the rest of the country goes on vacation during holiday season. Their work often involves serious challenges, and yet, the job is always done. Thank you very much. I hope that you will continue to promptly respond to accidents, whether on holidays or working days.
(Further on, at the President’s request, Transport Minister Roman Starovoit reported on the transport sector’s performance during the New Year holidays. According to him, from December 29 to January 8, Russian airlines carried over three million passengers, including more than 2.2 million within Russia. The seat occupancy rate on those flights was 85 percent. Moreover, as many as 56 airplanes of Russian airlines were simultaneously in flight on New Year’s Eve and in the early hours of January 1. Those airplanes were flown by 112 pilots, while more than 200 flight attendants took care of the passengers’ safety and comfort. About 1,200 air traffic controllers worked during the New Year’s Eve shift.
The Minister also said that more than 50 new air routes had been added to the Russian carriers’ winter schedule. In response to the President’s instruction, the government has been negotiating with the airlines a 50 percent discount on air fares for families with children. The 23 largest Russian airlines, which carry more than 95 percent of all passengers, began to offer a 50 percent discount for children under 12 years of age on all domestic flights within all existing fares, with the exception of business class, from January 1, 2025.
As many as 128,000 passengers celebrated the New Year on trains. On New Year’s Eve, 547 long-distance trains were en route on the Russian railway network, which means that more than 80,000 railway personnel had to work on New Year’s Eve and during the night to make sure everyone reached their holiday destination. In the period from December 27 to January 12, Russian Railways will carry over seven million passengers, which is 2.6 percent more than last year. During the holidays, 825 additional long-distance trains were scheduled.
During the New Year holidays, 143,000 passengers were transported to Crimea, which is more than two percent above the previous year’s level. From December 29 to January 8, almost 100,000 vehicles crossed the Crimean bridge in both directions, a 35 percent increase year-on-year.
Roman Starovoit mentioned 19 most popular tourist destinations for interregional bus routes, including the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, the Golden Ring, the North Caucasus, Kazan, Karelia, Altai and many others.
The Minister stressed that the transport sector is now past the New Year’s peak demand, and preparations have begun for the next seasonal peak, the summer tourist season. Rolling stock is being prepared, new routes are being developed, and new passenger infrastructure facilities are being built.)
Vladimir Putin: Mr Khusnullin, in the days leading up to the New Year we commissioned infrastructure facilities and discussed the performance of the construction industry. However, the final results of the year will be assessed this year. It is probably a little early to talk about the final results, but the construction industry performance is more or less clear.
Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin: Mr President,
We have summed up the preliminary results, and here is what I have to say.
Thanks to your consistent support and constant attention to the construction industry, the Government’s staff work with the regions, and the efforts of major infrastructure companies, this industry has been growing steadily in recent years. We have grown by almost two percent over the past year, and we have grown by 32 percent overall as we worked to implement the national project.
We have implemented all the tasks under the Housing and Urban Environment and Safe High-Quality Roads national projects. We completed these projects last year. They are among the most recognisable and popular national projects. As I just said, we have accomplished all the tasks set under these projects.
Thus, over the six-year period of work on the national project, 23.6 million families improved their housing conditions, including about 1.5 million families last year. Due to system-wide support measures, the annual growth of housing commissioning went up from 82 million sq m in 2019 to 110.4 [million sq m] in 2023. Last year, we commissioned 107.4 million sq m of housing which is only 2.7 percent below the record-setting year of 2023. At the same time, I would like to note that we commissioned an all-time record volume of individual housing construction – 62 million sq m – which is 1.6 times more than in 2019.
(Next, Mr Khusnullin dwelled on the issues of social gasification, relocation of residents from dilapidated housing, and improving the living environment for people. He said that 577 million sq m, or 12 percent of the entire housing stock in Russia, have been built in just six years, which is impressive even on a global scale. He noted that the housing availability per person stands at 29.3 sq m now, but by 2030 it will reach 33 metres, and 38 metres by 2036. Meanwhile, private citizens, who annually invest anywhere from eight to ten trillion rubles in construction, are the main investors in the housing construction. Mortgage loans are the main way to improve housing conditions. On the instructions of the President, mortgage programmes with state participation have been launched. They provided a significant support to the population and the construction industry even when the interest rates were high. Mr Khusnullin noted that 3.2 million families had benefitted from easy-term programmes to improve their housing conditions. A total of 9.7 million mortgage loans worth 31 trillion rubles have been issued since 2019, of which 13.8 [trillion] have been issued under easy-term programmes. Of these, 11 trillion rubles under mortgage loans have been paid back by individual borrowers.
Deputy Prime Minister also noted that 1,100 sites had been built at the expense of the federal budget and listed a number of landmark sites that the President kept under control and asked to complete them by the end of the year. These sites include the Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad and the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory, which obtained a commissioning permit. Sites such as the Tretyakov Gallery, the Sevastopol Academy of Choreography, and a great number of other sites that will bring joy to people have been commissioned).
Vladimir Putin: Mr Khusnullin has just mentioned the St Petersburg Conservatory.
Ms Lyubimova, how are things there, what is your assessment?
Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova: Mr President, good afternoon. Good afternoon, colleagues.
As you are aware, in summer of last year, the restoration was indeed almost entirely complete. We are now at a pivotal stage for us – the procurement of musical instruments. This has posed quite a challenge for our contractor colleagues who have worked diligently to meet deadlines.
We maintain constant communication with both the rector and the entire conservatory team because it is vital that – in addition to these remarkable stages, spaces, and the unique Rubinstein Hall, which we hope will consistently function as a concert venue allowing both city residents and numerous tourists to attend top-tier concerts – this place, a unique space renowned for such events, ensures that the educational process itself remains at the highest musical level infrastructurally, as it always has. The procurement of musical instruments is now nearing completion.
(The Minister then responded to questions from the President regarding the procurement of musical instruments, noting that there is now more space for rehearsals and greater capacity to accommodate more students, including those from foreign countries who aspire to study at Russian creative universities, notably in St Petersburg, which is very important.)
Vladimir Putin: I have one more question. In Kazan, with our Chinese colleagues, we discussed potential collaboration in cinematography. What progress has been made in this regard? I ask because I will soon have a telephone conversation with my counterpart, the leader of the People’s Republic of China. Have any advancement been achieved? Is there any joint work underway in this area?
Olga Lyubimova: Yes, thank you very much.
Indeed, it is important to highlight that our Chinese partners have made significant strides in the film industry. Symbolically, you know that in the second half of the 1950s, one of our first joint Russian-Chinese films was titled V Yedinom Stroyu [original name – Wind from the East]. The title of this film could now herald a new chapter in cinematic collaboration.
The Chinese film market is currently the largest globally. In this connection, new opportunities arise for creating films and promoting domestic achievements in one of our most important arts. Immediately following the meeting in Kazan, we held discussions with China Media Group and China Film Administration. Our Chinese colleagues confirmed their interest in stepping up cooperation.
However, it is crucial to note that our partners – primarily from the film business – are not fully aware of the capabilities of leading Russian filmmakers and remain very cautious when making decisions despite the existing experience in joint projects.
Therefore, we proposed a comprehensive approach to achieve goals related to enhancing mutual promotion of top national films and creating joint cinema without restrictions on screening within China’s territory and capable of showcasing shared values of our peoples.
To be continued.