President of Russia Vladimir Putin: You wanted to start with gas supply?
Acting Governor of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo: Yes, we can start with that.
Vladimir Putin: And then talk about agricultural production, right?
Vladimir Saldo: Yes.
We are making progress on the situation linked with utilities in the Kherson Region. Since gas was coming via a pipeline from Ukraine before – there was a big gas main on the other side – now, of course for natural reasons…
Vladimir Putin: But ultimately, this gas was Russian.
Vladimir Saldo: This gas is only Russian. There is no other gas.
Vladimir Putin: No, there is a bit, but for the most part, this is Russian gas.
Vladimir Saldo: Now we need to preserve the balance of gas supply, considering that gas supply is available only for 27 percent of the Kherson Region. This is not much.
Vladimir Putin: It’s not much, but why?
Vladimir Saldo: This is how it happened. The figure for the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics is 75 percent, but the figure for the Kherson Region, especially on the left bank, is a mere 27 percent.
Vladimir Putin: It should be increased.
Vladimir Saldo: Yes. This is why we need now to send gas from Crimea. Before we sent gas to Crimea, but now it is the other way around. There is a gas pipeline. It goes to Dzhankoi. We must build a pipeline to the Genichesk area and then distribute gas in the entire region. This is my request. We need a pipeline of about 105 km.
Vladimir Putin: You have a letter on this.
Vladimir Saldo: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Ok, let’s do it. We will deal with this problem, of course. It is very important for the people there. We understand this. The situation in their households will change, and the economy will develop in a completely different way…
Vladimir Saldo: We have horticulture. We have greenhouses that also need energy. Gas will reduce the costs and, hence, the prices.
Vladimir Putin: Energy cost. This is absolutely clear. Everything will be more reliable and stable. I understand this.
Vladimir Saldo: Thank you.
And now I will gradually move to the second part. I have the letter with me. Our left bank is our agrarian sector for the most part – by 95 percent.
Vladimir Putin: I know.
Vladimir Saldo: High farming standards, big areas, over 600,000 hectares are improved and irrigated lands. In cooperation with our Armed Forces, we have fixed the main pumping station. There are two canals – the main Kakhovka Canal and the Severokrymsky (North Crimean) Canal that also provides Crimea with water.
Land cultivation is organised but we are short of vegetable storehouse and cold stores that can hold these products until summer…
Vladimir Putin: …and, depending on the market changes, offer them for sale, for instance.
Vladimir Saldo: In the winter, the borsch set becomes more expensive, but in the summer the price dives. We need year-round storage facilities. Famous Kherson produce – tomatoes, watermelons and grapes – could be distributed further to all of the Russian Federation. People know our products.
We have discussed all of this and have a proposal – to create an agro-cluster, an agro-industrial cluster that will process, store and transport produce.
Vladimir Putin: Are you thinking a public cluster or private-public?
Vladimir Saldo: It could be private-public. That’s also possible.
Vladimir Putin: A partnership.
Vladimir Saldo: It won’t require a huge investment. It will pay off in two years.
Vladimir Putin: How much approximately? How much in your estimate?
Vladimir Saldo: We need about 25 billion to build a new vegetable storehouse with cold stores – this includes everything related to it. With this project, we can even out the prices in the Kherson Region and can supply the Russian market with produce.
Vladimir Putin: Very good. This is useful for Russia in general and two or three times more useful for the Kherson Region because this is its main production.
All right. We will certainly help you.
Vladimir Saldo: Thank you very much.
Source – The Russian Kremlin: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70882
Vladimir Putin meets with Acting Governor of Zaporizhzhia Region Yevgeny Balitsky
Moscow, 6 April 2023
Russian president had a working meeting with Acting Governor of the Zaporozhye Region Yevgeny Balitsky.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Balitsky, good afternoon.
Acting Governor of the Zaporozhye Region Yevgeny Balitsky: Good afternoon.
Vladimir Putin: Mr Balitsky, I know that you wanted to begin our talk with transport infrastructure, didn’t you? We discussed it at the meeting without cameras. After that, I asked our colleagues from Russian Railways and the Ministry of Transport to deal with these issues in detail. They have already presented some of their considerations. I do not know whether you know about them or not.
Yevgeny Balitsky: I do.
Vladimir Putin: Go ahead, please.
Yevgeny Balitsky: Mr President, on behalf of all Zaporozhye residents, I would like to thank you for the initiative that you supported: of course, the process of issuing maternity capital has already begun. As you know, this is very important, because over the 30 years of so-called independence, people have never seen anything like this and they realise today that Russia is a social state. Thank you very much.
Now to the infrastructure project that is being implemented at your initiative: we had a meeting with the Minister of Transport, formed a working group and calculated two options. The main option is to launch construction today in line with the emergency situation. Probably military builders will be involved.
The process is underway, for which we are grateful to you as well. Project evaluation has been completed, and the project will be submitted for final estimates within the next few days. After we agree on it with the stakeholder ministries, we will report to you with a final decision on the beginning of construction.
I would also like to update you on the status of your instructions to build a major children’s medical centre for the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions given that, unfortunately, the regional centres have not yet been liberated. This process is underway as well, and a working group has been created which is led by [Healthcare Minister] Mikhail Murashko. Today, we selected a plot of land where this centre will be built and assessed the amount of funding we will need, about 7 billion rubles. We will, of course, report back to you on the final project.
An outpatient clinic that will be able to handle 260 appointments at the same time and a 326-bed hospital are being built.
Vladimir Putin: Rest assured that these medical facilities will be superior to those in the regional centres by an order of magnitude. These will be modern buildings and the services, it can be safely assumed, will be to the highest level. We will train specialists and supply state-of-the-art equipment.
Yevgeny Balitsky: Thank you very much.
Next, regarding the status of the implementation of the instructions concerning the creation of the Sudoplatov Battalion, which you issued on March 7 during our meeting. This process is underway as well. We have received the status by a directive from the General Staff, and on April 4 they were assigned a number, BARS-32. The contracting will be done this month and, accordingly, this month we will receive weapons, and this will already be an official status.
Vladimir Putin: All social guarantees must also be formalised properly.
Yevgeny Balitsky: Yes, of course.
I addressed a request to you on March 7, and you issued instructions regarding the agriculture issue, which was put on hold to some extent – we needed 600 rail cars to transport one million tonnes of grain. Speaking of cars, I had a meeting with Mr Patrushev and received full support. We are receiving the cars, the process is underway, but the lending issue has not yet been resolved. I asked for a loan of 500 million for our state grain company. So far, Promsvyazbank has not issued the money, but the process is underway.
Source – The Russian Kremlin: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70881
Vladimir Putin meets with Acting Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik
Moscow, 6 April 2023
Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Acting Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik in the Kremlin.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Pasechnik, we wanted to meet yesterday, but the meeting with President Lukashenko ended late, so let us have our conversation today. Go ahead, please.
Acting Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik: Mr President, first of all I would like to report that the situation in the republic is relatively stable at present, controlled I would say, but tense. The enemy is shelling the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic much less often.
Vladimir Putin: They have other things to worry about at the moment.
Leonid Pasechnik: For some reason, HIMARS are used less often, and if earlier they were used against facilities where military personnel and warehouses with artillery weapons were located, now these are chaotic strikes, which generally land more on the civilian population. One of the last strikes was against Perevalsk: it was a ground strike near a bus station. There is a gas station nearby, a car service and so on. That is, it is not clear what purpose was pursued.
I think the goal is to destabilise the situation and keep pressure on the population.
Vladimir Putin: So, there are no military facilities there at all?
Leonid Pasechnik: Nothing, absolutely none. That is why the situation there is like this today.
Last week, we had a rather serious emergency, if I can call it that. I am talking about the weather conditions. We had heavy snow, a lot of snow, wet and very sticky. Some places had 40 and even around 60 inches of snow. Snow build-up on power lines caused wires and power transmission lines to break. Many trees fell and lots of roofs and cars were destroyed.
Vladimir Putin: It has been a long time since you had anything like that, right?
Leonid Pasechnik: You know, I can’t remember anything like this happening for a very long time.
The Government has fully organised all work to clear the roads. A report was made late on Monday – roads have been fully cleared and it is possible to get practically to any town. Lights are on practically everywhere, including Severodonetsk – in 127 residential buildings we have restored. The only people who are still without lights are private owners with broken wires.
During the emergency, about 210,000 customers were left without electricity, and about 15,000 still are without it as of this moment. We have 80 brigades and groups with 97 pieces of equipment working. The only problem is that water supply is sporadic because when a motor stops pumping, water leaves the pipe and it is impossible to pump it back into it instantly. So when electricity was restored, motors started pumping again. Now we need to fill water pipes to restore water supply. But we have more or less regular electricity, heating and gas supply.
Vladimir Putin: Do you need any help in these recovery efforts?
Leonid Pasechnik: Not at the moment, Mr President but thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: So you are coping.
Leonid Pasechnik: We are in constant contact with [Deputy Minister of Construction] Valery Leonov and [Deputy Prime Minister] Marat Khusnullin. Everything is organised. I would like to emphasise that the military have helped us a lot. This is completely true. I am talking about our service members in the army and private military contractors – they are great, and the Russian Guard. They helped us with crawler equipment because it was simply impossible to drive through fields and restore anything. At first, there was too much snow. Now it has melted and it is impossible to drive because of too much mud.
But the general situation is stable. We are implementing all tasks set in your instructions to create federal executive government bodies and form different structures, including law enforcement agencies. We are on schedule. We are preparing all documents, everything is according to plan.
Vladimir Putin: We discussed all this yesterday. Relevant instructions will be drafted as we agreed yesterday. I hope they will be a good incentive to speed up work.
Leonid Pasechnik: Thank you very much.
Source – The Russian Kremlin: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70880
Vladimir Putin meets with Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin
Moscow, 6 April 2023
Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Pushilin, good afternoon.
Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin: Good afternoon, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: Mr Pushilin, yesterday we had a talk on almost all the main issues, but nevertheless, we agreed to meet separately to discuss things that directly concern the Donetsk People’s Republic. Let us discuss them in greater detail. Go ahead, please.
Denis Pushilin: Mr President, I would like to report on the problems and how they are being addressed.
Of course, the main task on the agenda now is related to shelling, and we discussed this at our last meeting: I asked you to bolster air defence and counter-battery work. That was done. I can tell you that shelling has almost halved, according to the statistics that we have.
To be sure, there are districts in Donetsk, such as Petrovsky and Kuibyshevsky, that are still a problem for us …
Vladimir Putin: The goal of all our military formations, including the Defence Ministry, volunteers and everyone else, is to ensure that there are no shelling attacks at all. Since their number has decreased, we are on track to get there.
Denis Pushilin: Yes, the personnel is making the impossible possible, we see it, and everything is on a whole new level.
The next issue that worries our people is water supply. We had a very difficult, most difficult heating season, and utility workers did the impossible and filled the boiler rooms during water shortages, etc. … The sponsor regions helped us; Moscow helped with drilling wells and a whole range of other projects.
We are optimistic about the water pipeline. Thank you very much for this decision. It was not an easy one, but nevertheless, it helps us from being left without water at all. The standby reservoirs are almost empty. And the water line from the Don River, which is currently at the stage of being replenished. We understand that the pre-commissioning work is ongoing. We see it all, and it is all being done before our eyes. Again, it is being done in record time by military builders. Projects that took years to complete even in Soviet times get finished literally in a matter of months.
The next issue that worries us and is on our agenda is roads. Roads are always a difficult issue, we are well aware of that given that many of our roads have not seen repairs for a long time. Nevertheless, we repaired 279 kilometres of roads last year, which is twice as much as in previous periods. This year, we plan to repair even more, 350 kilometres of roads, plus 190 kilometres of municipal roads. Here, too, we are optimistic.
There is one issue where I would like to ask you to support us, because otherwise we will not be able to cope with it. We have the main road that connects us with other regions of the Russian Federation that goes from Donetsk to Uspenka. It is a two-lane road. There are certain difficulties. First, queues. Checkpoints are being expanded, work is underway, the Ministry of Transport has done its part, but it also takes time. We may end up with a bottleneck, which is already happening there, in fact, because it is getting warmer and there is more traffic and freight.
We would like to have this road widened to four lanes. We cannot do without this road. The number of accidents there is two or even three times higher than on other sections of the road, because drivers are trying to go faster and doing a lot of passing. This is a comprehensive project.
Vladimir Putin: Of course.
Denis Pushilin: Of course, this not only affects the delivery of essential supplies, the traffic, but also prices. This is the next question, because the logistics and everything else is a problem…
Vladimir Putin: Yes, it is a problem, which is why things tend to become more expensive.
Denis Pushilin: Hence, the request.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I discussed this with the Minister of Transport and with Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin. Our colleagues are working on it – both on increasing road capacity and improving the roads and even on building a railway (as we agreed, I will discuss this with our colleagues) in the Zaporozhye Region, and so on. Two or maybe three roads will need to be built to connect existing motorways and provide enough highway capacity for freight and passenger traffic.
Denis Pushilin: You are absolutely right and are looking at the root of the problem. It needs to be addressed in a comprehensive manner: widen a road here, build a railway there. Then, there is the Port of Mariupol which should be put to full use for freight and passenger traffic.
Vladimir Putin: The depths there are good, so it can be done. Our colleagues from the Ministry of Transport and our companies are working on this. They have been given assignments.
Security is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, we are dealing with a regime that is extremely cruel with regard to our people and their own people as well. Yesterday they reported to me that 14 Ukrainian servicemen surrendered at some point on the contact line. It was late, and several of our people stayed with them. They didn’t even guard them. The plan was to take them out of the combat zone the next morning. The enemy fired 300 shells in one spot killing all of its servicemen. Unfortunately, our guys were harmed as well. They don’t even spare their own. They act in an extremely cynical and cruel manner.
So, our goal is to move them away far enough in order to keep our people out of the harm’s way.
The questions that you raised are interrelated in one way or another. Even these transport routes – railways and roads – should be built in such a way as to increase the speed of traffic and to make sure they are at a sufficiently safe distance from the combat zone.
We will be working on this.
Source – The Russian Kremlin: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70879