Of the pandemic, before the crises of the 90s: Putin told how he had taken difficult decisions

on 28 June at 22:00 on TV channel “Russia 1” — a special edition of the program “Moscow. The Kremlin. Putin”. In it the President of Russia gives a new great interview with Paul Zarubino. Topics — from pandemic to the crises of the 90s.

From Alexander garden to my office in the First building of the Kremlin, Putin decided to go on foot. Previously together with the whole country he limited any unnecessary movement, left only work. And along with the entire country now have the reason to rejoice even those little things that I would hardly pay attention.

So Putin went on — not the path, close to the flowerbeds. Security on the Kutafia tower, meanwhile, clearly agog. On this gate was used, except that tourists with tickets to see, in recent months, and some were not, and the President is here. Clearly in the last second there is also time to open the turnstiles — through them, too, in the previous months, almost no one passed. It just seems that from Alexander garden to the First body to be very much a hand. Given the size of the Kremlin, quite a walk.

This is the first interview of the President within three months of the pandemic that shook the world.

Country that you have built these 20 years, they were ready, stable under the conditions of this storm that is associated with the coronavirus. If this happened to us in the 90s, early 2000s, we’d survived, survived?

– I think that Russia will survive all Peremoga and will survive, the only question is at what cost. Of course, if you remember the 90s, we often talk about this, I am not going to go into details, but, of course, would be very difficult. But we have basic support in the 90-ies was sent not in connection with man-made disasters or some natural phenomena, but as the poorest country in the world that hunger is not dead. Here’s what we got here how we lived. We could not do without foreign loans to pay salaries not paid for months, for months Yesalso the military did not pay. We have from 1999 to 2019 has doubled the country’s GDP. That is, the economy has doubled. In the early 90s, inflation was 2600%. Even in 1997, when the first signs of GDP growth, the inflation rate was still 11%. And now we have year it was 3%. Even in the present day, we have set a benchmark of 4%, and, most likely, about 4% will. But this is a fundamentally different thing. You mentioned about payments to citizens, families with children in different areas and at different scales. Mentioned allocated funds to support the economy and affected industries. Where do they come from? They are taken from our reserves today, from the budget. What was the budget in the 90s and even early 2000-ies, which we remembered? We had a chronic shortage. Wages were not paid, pensions were not even paid for several months. Our reserves have increased by 50 times over the years. Duty somewhere in the late 90s reached $ 165 billion, and gold and foreign exchange reserves were $ 15 billion. Agriculture nearly collapsed. Now, we only exports last year amounted to almost $ 20 billion. Even it was hard to imagine. Said to someone in the early 2000-ies that we will export 25 billion, no one would have believed. We took first place in the world in wheat exports. It’s just really an achievement! Well, it’s agriculture. We did some action to support this sector of the economy. We have the industry has grown recently at 90%, and the manufacturing sector more than doubled. In this sense, we still have a lot to do to diversify the economy, but it happens, it really happens. There are other parts of the economy that have made our country, our economy and the social sector more sustainable, incomparably more sustainable than it was in the late 90s and early 2000-ies. In fact, it is a different country. And, of course, want to repeat again: Russia will survive! The question of what price? And here’s what we made in recent years allow us to hope that we finally will come out of this situation, I have said many times, with dignity and with minimal losses.

– Saving lives or rescuing the economy, which is also in the end of life? Reserves, long years, saving up to development — and then a storm. You doubt? This difficult choice was given?

No. The life and health of citizens are the basis of any state. And we have our territories, our demographic challenges is the problem of problems, the question of questions. The absolute priority is to save the lives and health of people, then the rest of the problems we solve. All this will follow.

Text: “News of the week”