At a congress of the ruling United Russia party dedicated to the upcoming parliamentary elections in September, President Vladimir Putin promised the Russians billions of rubles to improve their living standards, BTA quoted AFP as saying.
The Russian leader spoke for nearly an hour in front of several hundred high-ranking United Russia officials gathered in Moscow.
The ruling party’s program should be the people’s program, Putin said the growing unpopularity of United Russia among the Russian population, provoked by economic stagnation and corruption scandals.
Putin has proposed allocating tens of billions of rubles to improve public transport, roads and infrastructure, repair schools and clean rivers.
“A prosperous and solid family with children is the future of Russia“said Putin, who remains true to his defense of family values and his goal of fighting Russia’s demographic decline.
Amid a growing epidemic of kovid in Russia and efforts to launch a Russian vaccination campaign against kovid, Putin also called for at least 100 billion rubles to strengthen the public health system.
Vladimir Putin also said today that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to head federal list of candidates of “United Russia” in the parliamentary elections, the Associated Press reported.
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Sergei Shoigu and Sergei Lavrov
Photo: AP / BTA
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With this move, Putin aims to attract more votes for “United Russia” in the upcoming elections, the agency notes.
Both Shoigu and Lavrov are very popular because of their strong positions on defense and foreign policy, respectively. The fact that they appear on the election list does not oblige them to take the seats of deputies if they are elected.
From today’s United Russia Congress absent Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister who is chairman of United Russia. He resigned as prime minister in January 2020 and took over as deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council. There is no explanation for his absence today, but according to unofficial information in the Russian media, he is not in the top five in the lists.
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