Putin says he traveled to Luhansk and Kherson so as not to distract the military

This content was published on Apr 19, 2023 – 15:38
April 19, 2023 – 15:38

Moscow, April 19 (EFE): Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed today that he went to the headquarters of the Russian forces in the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Kherson region, which Moscow annexed last September, because he did not want the military to be distracted from their duties.

“The purpose of the trip was to meet with the military, whose attention I did not want to distract for a long time, and to remove them from the units under their command. The situation required them to be in their positions,” the Kremlin chief said. In a remote meeting with members of the Council of Ministers on local self-government.

Putin noted that during his business trip, according to the Russian presidential press service on Monday, he witnessed traffic jams and the accumulation of heavy trucks “with loads for civilian use” on the Lugansk administrative border. .

“Of course, we must pay attention to this situation and resolve it,” he stressed.

The Russian president noted that the government is finalizing a “new territory development program,” referring to the annexed regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, and which, after fourteen months of military campaign in Ukraine, the Russian forces still do not have control over. complete.

He added that the government’s program should consider “the personal responsibility of deputy prime ministers and federal ministers for the final outcome” of it.

He explained that the aim of these measures is to improve the situation of the people and also the assessment made by “the citizens of these new regions to the management of the local authorities and the government of Russia.”

“Without the support of the federal centre, local leaders will not be in a position to solve the complex problems that have accumulated in these areas,” he stressed.

Putin noted that these problems were “aggravated by current events and those of the past eight years,” referring to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine and the conflict in Donbass, which erupted in 2014. EFE

Moss/RF

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