Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a big press conference-2023 on 14 December, Russian media reported.
The “Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin” received more than 2 million questions, Rossiya 24 TV channel reported. All questions were processed by the All-Russian People’s Front. Most often people asked about health care, pensions, allowances, education, benefits for large families.
Answering a question about the margin of safety of the Russian economy, the Russian president said:
The margin of safety is sufficient to not just feel confident, but to move forward. And this margin of safety, we have also talked about it many times, but I repeat, it is ensured by several components. The first, and this is the most important, is the high consolidation of Russian society. The second is the stability of the country’s financial and economic system.
According to Vladimir Putin, the most important indicator of economic growth is the growth of gross domestic product. He added:
By the end of the year, GDP growth is expected to be 3.5 per cent. This is a good indicator. It means that we have recovered from last year’s decline, where we had, I think, 2.1 per cent. If this year it will be 3.5 per cent, it means that we have recovered the fall and made a serious step forward.
Vladimir Putin also noted that wages were expected to rise by 8%. On 1 January, the minimum wage will be raised by 18% at once. The state foreign debt is being reduced. This also speaks about macroeconomic stability and financial stability. The state debt has been reduced from $46 billion to $32 billion.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin noted:
There will be peace when we achieve our goals. Now let’s go back to those goals. They are not changing.
Journalists asked many questions about mobilisation. The President noted that there were no plans for a second wave of mobilisation, as 486,000 volunteers had already been recruited, while the plan was to recruit 410 by the end of the year.
Sergey Maksimovich Sobolev, from Iskitim, Novosibirsk region, asked about the expediency of creating a military-patriotic structure for Russian youth to train personnel for the army. To this question Putin replied:
Educating young people in the spirit of patriotism in the best, not worst sense of the word, it is extremely important. And we are already starting to do it. More than a thousand of your colleagues and your comrades-in-arms who have served and returned to civilian life are already working in schools and with children’s teenage groups.
Asked about the prospects for normalising relations with the European Union and Western countries, Putin said:
As for the normalisation of relations, it does not depend on us alone. We did not spoil these relations, it was us who spoilt relations with them and tried to push us into the second or third place, disregarding our interests.. As for the United States, we are ready to build relations with them as well. We believe that the United States is an important and necessary country in the world, but this absolutely imperial policy hinders them. Not even us, it hinders them.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, said that employees of Russian federal and regional media had arrived at the event, and that media from “friendly” and “unfriendly” countries would be represented.
Vladimir Putin has been holding final press conferences and direct lines since 2001.
