President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,
The Government has just done a lot of work to optimise budget spending, and we all know that spending on defence, security and the law enforcement agencies and armed forces overall is one of the big items in the budget.
In this respect, I want to thank you for the optimisation work that has enabled us to keep in place the state defence procurement and arms programmes’ main parameters. This is crucial for achieving our armed forces modernisation goals. It is essential for keeping our spending on maintaining the armed forces and buying new equipment within the set parameters and enabling us to carry out according to plan the needed structural changes and modernise arms and equipment.
The work on building and refurbishing garrisons must continue, and so must this year’s plans for housing, including full completion of the work to provide all personnel with service housing. I hope that this will be the case. With regards to service housing, I am referring to the proposals the Defence Ministry presented on monetary compensation for sublets of service housing for officers and warrant officers.
Finally, military pensions are to be indexed this year. I am referring to pensions for personnel from the Defence Ministry and other law enforcement and security agencies.
Are there any other matters that still need to be settled?
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: Everything has been settled, Mr President.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov: We have the needed financial resources.
Vladimir Putin: Good, thank you.
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