Creating a Network of Modern University Campuses

Model of the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering Campus.

Directly after his participation in the Movement of the First’s Forum’s closing ceremony and its euphoria (the event’s video shows that), which I reported on prior to The Interview, Putin went to a meeting dealing with the long term planning for Russia’s future institutions of higher learning. The event begins with the opening of numerous facilities nationwide in the first portion of a plan that was set in motion in 2021—Yes, the Russians were busy during Covid. At its conclusion the discussion format about where the project stands commences. Readers should be able to discern the core of what constitutes People Centered Development that this project greatly signifies. And yes, that’s one of the central aspects of the Soviet political-economy that Russia has resurrected and modified. And it’s working very well. All emphasis is mine.

Vladimir Putin: Dear colleagues, good afternoon! I welcome you all.

Those who are present here have seen that I have just met with children, young people, schoolchildren and teenagers from the Movement of the First. They have a closing day convention today.

But here's what I thought. According to demographers ' estimates, the number of young people will constantly grow for more than a decade, and very soon children who are 10-12 years old today will come to study at technical schools and universities. And of course, we must work now, today, to provide them with broad, qualitatively new conditions for self-realization, for successful career and life growth, so that they become real professionals in their field and receive reliable value and moral guidelines. This is, without any exaggeration, a national strategic task. Therefore, together with the regions and businesses, we are implementing a number of large-scale projects to develop the educational infrastructure.

The largest companies not only participate in the federal program for the construction of university campuses, but also finance the construction of advanced educational research infrastructure of higher education. This is a good example of partnership between the state and business in developing the country's human and intellectual potential.

Today we will start our meeting with the opening ceremony of new academic buildings, dormitories, laboratories, and universities in various regions of our country. Almetyevsk, Kogalym, Ufa, and Moscow are in touch with us.

Please give the floor to Mikhail V. Gordin, Rector of Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

Please, Mikhail Valeryevich.

Mikhail Gordin: Mr President, how do you do?

The task of our university is to train engineering and scientific personnel for our country. To achieve this large-scale goal, of course, we previously lacked buildings and laboratories, and therefore the federal project for the construction of world-class campuses is very important for us, for Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

As a large technical university, of course, we are already participating in projects of technological sovereignty, but our task is to expand this activity, involve more young people in it, and produce not just engineers, but entire engineering teams that are ready to immediately join in solving complex problems.

Our main areas of activity are space, defense technologies, biomedical engineering, and robotics. We are also starting to actively participate in photonics, quantum computing, and fluid technologies. And of course, we do all this together with our industry, the enterprises of Roscosmos, Rostec, Rosatom, our companies Gazprom, Sibur, Transneft, KamAZ, Almaz-Antey, KTRV. Together, we equip laboratories: partly at the expense of federal projects, Priority 2030, and advanced engineering schools, but also at the expense of our industrial investors.

Now we are in a hostel complex with 2,300 beds, after the commissioning of which we will have the opportunity to receive almost 1.5 times more children from the regions, from neighboring countries. This, of course, is very good, and we are grateful that the decision was made to build our campus.

Sergei Sobyanin: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, [Moscow’s Mayor]

In addition to what Mikhail Valeryevich said, I will say the following.

We were very enthusiastic about your assignment to create a new Baumanka research campus, because it is, of course, a legendary university with a huge past and enormous potential for the whole country. Together with the Government of the Russian Federation, we have identified a project consisting of 14 new buildings with a total capacity of 170 thousand square meters. To understand the scale: this is half of everything that was built in Baumanka in all the decades.

Today we are opening two buildings. The first building is a research center that will deal with rocket and space technologies. This is a multifunctional library building.

This is the restoration of an emergency building, which looks very good today and is also ready to accept students.

Before that, we introduced a number of other buildings. This is an engineering center for land transport and technological systems, a center for biomedical systems, a multifunctional scientific and educational building, which currently houses more than 20 scientific laboratories. The Palace of Technology is a former palace that the notorious Lefort once built. Then the Russian Senate even stayed here for a while. And then it was transferred to the cadet school. Today it is really a palace where it will be possible to hold educational, scientific and other events.

The hostel in which we are located-it sounds very utilitarian: "hostel" - but look, this is really a unique architectural structure that will decorate not only Baumanka, but the city as a whole – 60 thousand square meters, and by the end of the year it will also be put into operation.

We continue to build buildings. They will be introduced this year and all students will be accepted until September 1.

The multifunctional complex "Quantum Park" is a central cluster, also unique in its architecture and competencies, consisting of several blocks: a cluster of nature protection technologies, a cluster of digital materials science, a federal testing center, a cluster of digital transformation, an innovation hub, a congress center, and a cultural and leisure center.

In order to provide infrastructure projects and transport, the Elektrozavodskaya station was opened nearby on the Bolshaya Koltsevaya Metro Line, which we opened together with you, and a pedestrian bridge was specially built from this station to the Baumanki campus. We are building a second pedestrian bridge from the dorm complex to the academic buildings. The stadium was handed over to Baumanka. It was repaired properly, landscaped and carried out in addition a large complex improvement. Last year, this was the largest project in Moscow. 14 streets around Baumanka were also improved in a high-quality way.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to invite you to visit Baumanka on September 1 together with the students, who support my request, and the rector, to open these wonderful buildings together, which will be a decoration for Baumanka, Moscow, and the country.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you, Sergey Semyonovich. Thank you very much, Mikhail Valeryevich.

You just mentioned the students who are standing next to you, next to the rector. Maybe one of them will tell you what you liked the most, what you paid attention to, and what you consider most valuable in the project that we are implementing?

Pavel Orlov: Hello, Mr President!

My name is Pavel. I am the chairman of the university's student council.

If we talk about what I liked most, the most important thing is that you can live in the city center, near new academic buildings, and it's very cool to combine, you know, the difficult study in Baumanka and student life. That is, you can play sports, you can deepen your knowledge in science, and, most interestingly, you can do it right here, practically without leaving the hostel. Then I went and made a scientific discovery, then I gathered with the guys to sing songs to the guitar – why not?

It's a shame that I'm already finishing university as a student this year. And, probably, I will not get to the lectures in the new audience as a listener. But I have graduate school ahead of me, so I'll have to read them. Thank you so much for supporting this decision. I think all the students will thank you very much for this and for the fact that you and Baumanka did such a wonderful thing.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Don't be sorry. Everything is developing rapidly, everything is moving forward. Be happy for your native Baumanka. I wish you every success, and I am sure everyone who comes here will enjoy it, and everyone will make the best use of the opportunities provided by the new infrastructure.

Sergey Semyonovich, thank you very much. We just spoke with Marat Shakirzyanovich. Of course, it is very important, but it is difficult to do this in Moscow. Nevertheless, you do it, don't be greedy, I mean the surrounding areas. This is very important, because it is necessary for the development of such large educational institutions.

Thanks All the best!

Sergei Sobyanin: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Please, Alexander Anatolyevich Diakonov, Almetyevsk State Petroleum Institute.

Alexey Diakonov: Mr President, dear colleagues, hello!

Today, we are opening a unique facility in Almetyevsk – the Higher School of Oil Research and Training Center. Already here, university and industry science, practice-oriented training and real production are combined on one platform. Thanks to our partner and customer – Tatneft-the center is a complex of facilities with an area of 110 thousand square meters, including two educational and laboratory buildings with an area of 50 thousand square meters. These are 60 laboratories and 72 classrooms equipped with the most modern world-class equipment, high-comfort dormitories with 712 seats, a sports center, a residential complex with 188 apartments for teachers and employees with a kindergarten, a hotel and underground Parking. All this has a unique and modern architecture.

Investments totaled 26.5 billion rubles. All these facilities have been commissioned and are in operation. This allowed us to attract first of all leading teachers and the best researchers, motivated applicants from 36 regions of Russia and nine countries of the world, which gives qualitatively new results in training personnel when they are immersed in real practical tasks starting from the first year.

I would like to point out that we are the only university in the country that successfully develops two advanced engineering schools at once. The first one deals with hard-to-recover oil reserves, and the second one deals with biotechnologies in cooperation with ITMO University.

We are one of the leaders in terms of the volume of scientific research performed. This is more than 3.5 million rubles per year for one research and teaching employee. We set a goal to double the number of students.

Together with the St. Petersburg Mining University, we are currently working on the implementation of basic training for specialists. The Higher Oil School is an integral part of the educational vertical that is being formed in the south-east of the Republic of Tatarstan, starting from kindergarten, school, university and lifelong education.

Thanks to your support, the republic and the Tatneft company strengthen their scientific potential and become the foundation for the country's advanced technological development.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to visit the Higher School of Petroleum and invite you to hold the next meeting with the participants of the federal project "Advanced Engineering Schools".

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

R. Minnikhanov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, good afternoon!

We are working together with the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education and our industrial partners to ensure the technological sovereignty of our country. In particular, over the past two years, six advanced engineering schools have been established and are successfully operating in the republic: federal universities together with KAMAZ in Naberezhnye Chelny, technological universities together with Sibur in Nizhnekamsk, Innopolis universities together with Gazprom, and technical universities together with Rostec in the field of aircraft management.- and helicopter construction. And two advanced engineering schools, which my colleague has already mentioned. In addition, five of our universities, having passed a tough federal competition, entered the elite of Russian education, becoming participants in the Priority 2030 program.

With the support of the Federal Ministry, campuses of our other universities are also actively developing. Quite recently, Dmitry Chernyshenko and I opened two modern dormitories at Innopolis University and a new dormitory at the Technical University in Kazan. A year earlier, the Kazan Energy University Students ' House was opened.

Of course, I would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for the federal project "University Technological Entrepreneurship". Thanks to this project, over two years 442 student startups in the republic received financial support-one million each - to create their own high-tech businesses.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to thank you once again for all the measures of federal support for the country's scientific and technological development, and I assure you that all the tasks you have set will be successfully implemented.

Thanks for attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. I have no doubt that it will be so.

Alexander Anatolyevich, as in the first case with Moscow, also invite some of the guys, I see that there are also students standing next to you.

Alexander Dyakonov: Yes, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Let someone come over.

Please introduce yourself.

Remark: Hello, Vladimir Vladimirovich!

My name is Kamil, I am a first-year master's student.

Vladimir Putin: How do you like the university's new opportunities?

Remark: They impress me very much. When I arrived in Russia, I did not expect that I would study at such a university. Everything here is so accessible in terms of conditions, starting with the room in which we live, and the school building in which we study, and we can also play sports in our sports complex. The convenience is that all our buildings are connected by land crossings, and you can get to the next building without going out on the street.

Vladimir Putin: You said "when I arrived in Russia". Where did you come from in Russia?

Replica: I'm from Kyrgyzstan. But I'm a Tatar.

Vladimir Putin: It's clear. You chose this university deliberately, of course, yes? Did you want to be an oilman?

Remark: To be honest, the choice fell by chance, but I do not regret this accident at all.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, it's interesting.

No matter what they say about hydrocarbons, no matter what they say about the need to develop alternative forms of energy – and we need to do this, and we are doing it in Russia, without any doubt, we will continue to do it-from the hydrocarbon energy sector-of course, it also needs to be improved, we need to think about making it as efficient as possible However, in the coming decades, many decades, humanity will not escape anywhere. This is absolutely what is called a medical fact. Therefore, you did not lose, and so it will be.

And the university where you are studying today is certainly one of the most promising, one of the best in the country. I think you're in luck. I wish you, as well as all other students of your university, all the best. Good luck!

Replica: Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Tashkinov Anatoly Aleksandrovich-National Research Polytechnic University, Perm.

You are welcome.

A. Tashchinov: Good afternoon, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Today we are opening an educational center in Kogalym – a branch of Perm Poly. It is a modern, high-tech cluster, which includes a world-class campus for a thousand students and trainees, basic departments, industrial and service organizations of the fuel and energy complex and Kogalym Polytechnic College.

In accordance with the new higher education system, we will train a new generation of engineers here, providing companies with personnel and ensuring Russia's technological sovereignty. A characteristic feature of these engineers will be deep, fundamental knowledge, advanced professional, digital and managerial competencies, and confidence in the future of Russia.

The main activity of the educational center is professionally oriented training and early involvement of students in applied research and development.

Perm Poly is one of the leading technological universities in Russia, a member of the federal programs "Advanced Engineering Schools" and "Priority-2030".

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you for supporting the project to create and develop the educational center in Kogalym, as well as the Government of the Russian Federation, the governors of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Ugra and the Perm Region. Special thanks to Lukoil.

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Anatoly Alexandrovich, how many students do you have in the Kogalym branch?

A. Tashnikov: There will be a thousand students. We are just opening, some of the students have already been moved.

Vladimir Putin: How much do you plan?

A. Tashnikov: A thousand.

Vladimir Putin: A thousand? Understood. How many students do you have at the university?

A. Tashnikov: At the university – 15 thousand.

Vladimir Putin: It's clear. A large university.

Natalia Vladimirovna, please.

Natalia Komarova: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, colleagues, I welcome you!

The new educational center was created as a result of teamwork between the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the Government of Perm Krai, Lukoil and the Government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Ugra. It meets the standard of world-class campus equipment, including educational space and laboratory complexes for training engineering personnel for the oil and gas industry. Yes, we are also talking about oil.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, on your instructions, we are working with the Government of the Russian Federation to establish and develop the Unity Park Innovation Science and Technology Center. One of the research areas of our INTC is the development of technologies in the field of energy security. The newly opened center will be used by the Lukoil-Engineering research and design team, whose strategic goal is technological leadership in providing geological exploration and ensuring oil and gas production.

Thanks to the federal project "Professionalitet" in 2023, we created an educational production cluster on the basis of Kogalym Polytechnic College. In September 2024, we will open a center for advanced professional training in the oil and gas industry and an international competence center for technical education under the auspices of UNESCO with the flagship St. Petersburg Mining University named after Empress Catherine II, together with the Nedra consortium of Russian Universities, which includes Perm National Research Political University, Surgut and Ugra State Universities. They implement projects to train engineers for the country's oil and gas industry.

Thus, the opening of the Perm Poly branch will allow us to implement the model of continuous training of highly qualified specialists in a completely different way at the modern level: school, college, university, industry science, enterprises for the oil and gas industry in the areas of "geology", "oil and gas field development", "drilling".

Thank you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, for your support, Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin, Valery Nikolaevich Falkov, Dmitry Nikolaevich, Marat Shakirzyanovich for working together on this and other projects.

In conclusion, here's something else, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich. Every year on January 25, the Day of Russian Students, I meet with the participants of the "Happy Ticket" campaign. Students collect their wishes from all educational organizations, lototron, and randomly I choose three wishes from this reel. This year, all three tickets were, you won't believe it, with the dream of visiting St. Petersburg. Of the 821 lottery tickets, 34 were about meeting you. I gathered students who dreamed of meeting you today at this site. I tried to persuade them that this is enough to fulfill their desire – but they still insist on a personal meeting.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I invite you to Ugra to meet with students.

Vladimir Putin: Okay, we'll try to do that. In the meantime, please invite someone.

Natalia Komarova: I can speak directly to the representative of one of these 34 – year-olds, who has already mentioned it here, Mr Putin. She really wanted to tell us why this particular desire was made. Yana is a college student.

Remark: Hello, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, Yana.

Remark: I am very happy for this unique opportunity to address you personally. I would like to express my deep gratitude to you for the opportunity to live a rich life, participate in various projects and programs, and see how our country is developing technologically. It's very exciting and very enjoyable.

I have a great desire to invite you to Ugra to meet with students. We have something to tell you and something to show you. Please come here.

Vladimir Putin: Yanochka, thank you very much. I'll try to do it.

What's your specialty? What specialty do you study in?

Student: I study at the Nizhnevartovsk Social and Humanitarian College and am a representative of a 300-year-old pedagogical dynasty. I'm preparing to become a primary school teacher.

Vladimir Putin: Pedagogical dynasty. Who was the teacher in your family?

Remark: My father still works as a teacher, my grandparents and great-grandparents were also teachers.

Vladimir Putin: And even great-grandfathers?

Remark: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Indeed, this is a significant thing, an interesting one: from generation to generation, you pass on your love for educating young people and the younger generation. Great. A very noble, very important mission. It's not even a profession, it's a mission.

I wish you all the best in this work. Send your best wishes to all the teachers in your family. In this case of your family, of course, I respect all teachers, but since we are talking, I wish all teachers success and good luck. And I wish you all the best in this profession and in life.

Natalia Vladimirovna, I hope that the new facility will also fit into Kogalym, will fit into the city and will also be one of such good dominants.

Natalia Komarova: Yes, this is true, and we are counting on it. And in essence, we expected just such effects: new opportunities for young people, for the realization of their capabilities.

Vladimir Putin: Lukoil has been operating in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug for a long time, and Kogalym is no stranger to the company.

Please, Vadim Nikolaevich, you have the floor.

Vladimir Vorobyov: Good afternoon, Mr President! Good afternoon, colleagues!

In accordance with your instructions, Mr President, a little more than three years ago, here in Kogalym, together with the Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov, we laid the foundation stone for this educational center, which we are opening today.

The active participation of the Government of Ugra and the Government of Perm Krai was of great importance in the success of this project. Kogalym, as you correctly said, is our base city, one of the centers of the country's oil industry, where students from the first year can consolidate their knowledge in real production, and employees of our company will also teach here.

The equipment of the educational center meets and even exceeds the best world analogues. It is implemented on the basis of Lukoil's existing research infrastructure and includes about 40 scientific and practical laboratories, as well as all the conditions necessary to ensure the educational process and comfortable living of students. All graduates of the center will be employed at our production facilities.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, this modern educational institution is our company's contribution to the future of domestic energy and ensuring technological sovereignty. I ask you to start our project.

Vladimir Putin: I'm happy to do it.

You have just said a very important thing, and all of you, future graduates, have heard it for sure. You said that all graduates will be employed by our company. This is very important for children, for those who come to study. They know where they will work, they know the company, it is one of the world's largest companies and one of the companies that we are proud of in Russia. So I wish you every success in training your staff, and I wish everyone who is studying every success in their future profession.

Vladimir Vorobyov: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Let's move to Ufa. Vadim P. Zakharov, Rector of Ufa University.

Please, Vadim Petrovich.

Vladimir Zakharov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, Dear colleagues!

Today is a holiday in the Republic of Bashkortostan, and it is very pleasant that this holiday is almost a few days before our professional holiday, the professional holiday of the scientific community – the Day of Russian Science.

Indeed, the first stage of the interuniversity student campus in Ufa is opening today. For a long time, we – the entire scientific community, the scientific and educational community of the Republic of Bashkortostan, together with our key industrial partners, with the participation of the Government of the Republic of Bashkortostan – very carefully selected and formed federal projects that are currently being implemented in the Republic of Bashkortostan, in the logic of development in key, promising scientific areas.

Today, the integration of science, education and the real sector of the economy receives a modern infrastructure. This makes it possible to form a complete chain of generation of new scientific knowledge, which already leads to the production of technological products that are in demand by the market here and now.

We immediately put synergy into the name of our campus. We have an interuniversity campus of the world-class Eurasian research and education center. This vector of Eurasian integration will make it possible to form the Republic of Bashkortostan as a platform for Eurasian integration during the interuniversity campus.

We have brought a lot of meanings to the campus related to the work of talented students. We all know perfectly well that it is necessary to educate a high-quality specialist today from the school bench. And today the universities of the Republic of Bashkortostan will attract talented young people to their walls, and they will have the opportunity, young people, to get a high-quality education here in Ufa.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you on behalf of the entire scientific and educational community of Bashkortostan for such a gift. We are very happy. And, of course, we will now increase the pace of development and contribution to the country's technological sovereignty.

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Ufa is indeed one of the largest educational centers in the country.

Radiy Faritovich, please.

R. Khabirov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, Dear colleagues!

We really have a very important day today.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, five years ago we approached you with our proposals for modernizing the infrastructure of the higher school of Science in the republic. You have supported them very effectively, and we have very significant results today. This is primarily a modern Bashkir flagship of science and education-Ufa University of Science and Technology on the basis of two universities. Now it has 51 thousand students. This is indeed the flagship of science and education. It is a world-class Eurasian research and education center that unites six universities, three research institutions and 30 industrial partners.

Dmitry Nikolaevich once summed up the results of the work of RECs [Reseach and Education Centers] and identified us as one of the dynamically developing and leading RECs in the Russian Federation.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, what is the difference between the Republic of Bashkortostan? We have a very large number of young people-1 million 85 thousand. In the Volga Federal District, this is the largest number of young people, so, of course, we have always needed a campus. We are very grateful to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia. Why? Every year we have an increase in admission to budget places, but we have experienced and are experiencing a serious shortage of dormitories. Therefore, we certainly took part in the competition for campuses and are very grateful that the decision was made to build it.

Today we present the first stage of the campus-it is 37 thousand square meters. This is a scientific and educational environment, 20 laboratories. It is an environment for student creativity and entrepreneurship. We are already completing the design of the second stage. It's a lot of work. This is 103 thousand square meters, it is seven towers of dormitories, united by a single stylobate, where there will be, as they say, a student environment.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, we wanted to make this campus a reference space for the student environment, for the scientific and educational environment. Vladimir Vladimirovich, we are always looking forward to seeing you in Bashkortostan. We are very grateful for the support of the republic, for the warm attitude towards the republic and, of course, would like to show you this campus, which we hope you will enjoy and will develop science and education in general in the Russian Federation.

Thanks for attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much for the invitation. I will be happy to come to Bashkortostan. Indeed, you have a good land and very hospitable people, a beautiful culture. The republic is developing rapidly and at a good pace. So I'll be happy to do it. We will see you in the near future and talk about the development of the republic.

Of course, I would like to congratulate the leadership of the respective regions, the leadership of Moscow, Almetyevsk, Kogalym and Ufa on these events. These are important steps in the development of educational infrastructure in the whole country. This is just the beginning, and for some of the objects that we have just discussed, as you have just said, this is only the first stage. And in general, there are 25 campuses across the country. In the first stage-17 campuses, eight more. We will continue to think about how to extend this program, and we will certainly continue to extend it, because we really need to change the environment in which future researchers, future engineers, and future specialists in other fields live. This is in demand and important, and we will certainly continue to do it at a good pace and with high quality.

It was just mentioned here that the leadership of Bashkiria sought to create a reference space for students, postgraduates and teachers. The goal of creating modern campuses is precisely this – to create reference spaces. We will certainly move further in this direction.

I congratulate all of you on today's event and hope that we will continue moving at the same pace.

Thank you very much.

We are now moving on to a meeting on the progress of the program to create a network of modern campuses. We'll talk about this in more detail.

I once again congratulate everyone on today's event and would like to thank the architects, engineers, technologists, and builders. To note the initiative of our companies, which, as we have seen in the example of Almetyevsk and Kogalym, are actively engaged in creating new educational spaces and modern training platforms at the expense of their own resources. This is exactly what we have talked about many times, and we have always called for business to be actively involved in solving one of the most important tasks facing the country, and this task is called training modern personnel that the economy needs. If we do what we are doing now together, we will definitely be successful.

We need to take into account the experience gained in implementing our plans for the development of educational infrastructure, including the federal program for the construction of university campuses. We will talk about its further implementation today.

Let me remind you that, as I have just said, it is planned to create a total of 25 such campuses with modern academic and residential buildings, spaces for creativity, sports, and recreation in the horizon of the current decade, from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, so that students have ample opportunities for harmonious development, high-quality education, and science. and even entrepreneurship, and companies, enterprises would receive highly qualified specialists, good personnel, together with students and graduate students could engage in research and development, create technologies and competitive products in demand.

Of course, we all know that large-scale industrial, information, and technological projects, as well as programs for the development of cities and localities, are currently being implemented. In other words, we are talking about the comprehensive development of all regions of our large country.

Specialists who are highly qualified in many areas will have to solve problems of this level of complexity and scale, and therefore, by building advanced educational and research infrastructure on university campuses and other projects, we need to make a big step forward in the development of the entire education system in the regions.

It should develop and introduce new training courses and methods, provide vocational guidance to schoolchildren, improve the skills of teachers, and, of course, train in-demand specialists for the country's economy and social sphere.

I would like to emphasize that such university campuses should become an intellectual resource for solving the problems of raising our territories, improving the quality of life of people in these territories, and they should make a visible contribution to the development of the entire country.

In this regard, it is important to take into account in detail once again at the stage of project coordination, clearly understand the directions and priorities of national and regional development, the prospects for implementing infrastructure and large-scale industrial projects. For such specific strategic tasks, the material base of educational buildings, laboratories, and technology parks should be formed. In other words, I would like to emphasize that we need to think through not only architectural solutions, build beautiful walls, which is also important, but also clearly understand what will fill the life of future campuses. Therefore, I ask you to pay special attention to this today, as well as to the work on equipping campuses with equipment, equipment, and everything necessary.

In addition, it is already important to accurately understand the amount of expenses for the operation and maintenance of constructed buildings, and to provide in advance the necessary funds for this, both from budgetary and extra-budgetary sources. And, of course, when implementing the campus program, it is necessary to take into account the opinions, requests and assessments of the student environment itself, the student youth themselves.

By the way, at a recent meeting, students of Kaliningrad universities, with whom, as you may have noticed, I met recently, raised, in my opinion, a very important issue. We are talking about ensuring that university campuses take into account the needs of young families. For you and me, this is very important for a number of reasons. There should also be opportunities for raising children. I ask you to take these issues into account without fail, not only in the framework of the program for creating campuses, but also when updating the infrastructure of the dormitories of our entire higher school in general. I would like to draw the attention of all my colleagues in the Government and in the regions to this.

Another topic that was discussed in Kaliningrad was the need to make the campus infrastructure open and accessible to all residents of the region. It should be used for educational, social activities, and sports activities. These aspects, of course, should also be adjusted, of course, taking into account security issues, but modern technologies allow this to be done. As a matter of fact, this is how campuses are planned. Please pay special attention to this.

I also hope that modern and convenient campuses in general will serve as an incentive for creating a modern urban environment, all the infrastructure necessary for doing business, working and relaxing, and a comfortable life for people. They will be integrated meaningfully and architecturally into the surrounding space. And this experience will also be taken into account in the development of cities within the framework of master plans.

We are currently doing this work in the cities of the Far East and the Arctic, and we will definitely extend it to other regions of Russia.

And of course, the well-designed and comfortable campus space should become a platform for sharing best practices, for implementing joint initiatives of students, postgraduates, and teachers of all universities in the country. In other words, the campus program as a whole should serve the development of academic mobility, unite our youth, and set the vector for the development of our entire higher education system. I ask you to take all these aspects into account when selecting new participants in the campus creation program and when implementing projects that have already been accepted for implementation.

Let's move on to the topic we're here to discuss.

Please give the floor to Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Nikolaevich Falkov.

Please, Valery Nikolaevich.

Vladimir Falkov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Starting in 2021, a large-scale project is being implemented on your behalf to create 25 modern campuses by 2030. The work has gained a good pace and, of course, gives a serious impetus to the development of the entire national higher education system. After all, such campuses are not just walls, but a special unique space, as it was rightly noted, for studying, research, and innovation. These are simultaneously new growth points for cities and regions. They will attract talented young people from all over the country, become centers of knowledge generation in the interests of domestic science and the economy for the benefit of our citizens.

Currently, only 17 campuses are being designed and built within the framework of the federal project that was developed on your behalf. This is more than 2300 thousand square meters. We are talking about a completely new, advanced infrastructure. This is the most modern classroom, scientific laboratories, technology parks, comfortable places for living, creativity and sports. The selected projects were strictly selected.

The first competition was announced immediately after your assignment in 2021. At that time, we received 27 applications and selected the best eight of them. These are campuses in Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Tomsk-and all of them are under implementation.

For example, in Moscow, as it was said earlier, six facilities have already been built, including the Bauman Moscow State Technical University campus, and the rest will be completed by the end of the year. At one time, just for comparison, the main academic building of Baumanka on Yauza with a smaller area of 67 thousand square meters was built almost three times longer – 11 years.

In addition, the first facility in Ufa was completed in December last year. By the end of March this year, the construction of ten more facilities will be completed in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, and Kaliningrad, where you recently visited and met with students.

We announced the second competition a year later, in 2022, and based on its results, we selected nine more new projects out of 39 applications. These are campuses in Samara, Perm, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Ivanovo, Arkhangelsk, Tyumen, Khabarovsk, Veliky Novgorod and on the federal territory of Sirius.

I would like to thank the heads of the regions. Our colleagues are actively involved in the work and strictly monitor the quality and timing of your assignment. For example, Valery Limarenko's team carried out all the design work on the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk campus as quickly as possible, and we were able to start construction in July last year.

Separately, I would like to note that the construction of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University campus, as discussed today, is being carried out by Moscow. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sergey Sobyanin for this support, as well as for the equally important projects on the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering campus, which was presented to you today, and for other projects on the territory of Moscow. They are implemented jointly with the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology and, of course, our flagship – the Lomonosov Moscow State University.

In general, we see great interest in new campuses both from the regions and from businesses. In this regard, special attention should be paid to the objects that are being opened today. These are the campus of Perm Poly in Kogalym, which was created entirely at the expense of Lukoil, and the campus of Almetyevsk State Petroleum Institute, the construction of which was personally financed by the Republic of Tatarstan and Tatneft. I personally visited both sites. This is a really high level. They are equipped to the most modern standards and, I am sure, will play an important role in the development of regions and cities.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, the total cost of creating 17 campuses exceeds 500 billion rubles, of which federal funds account for about 40 percent. A comparable amount is attracted by interested businesses, while the rest of the expenses were borne by the regions. I would like to add that 12 out of 17 projects are implemented in the framework of public-private partnership. Of course, such a large-scale task required a qualitatively different interagency interaction from us. Mikhail Vladimirovich keeps the implementation of each project under personal control. Under the leadership of Dmitry Nikolaevich Chernyshenko and thanks to the support of the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance, we are going according to the planned schedule. Special thanks to Marat Shakirzyanovich Khusnullin. All current issues related to campuses are promptly resolved at meetings of the Regional Development Commission headquarters. Our colleagues from United Customer and Glavgosexpertiza of Russia are helping us.

Separately, I would like to note that in parallel with the design and construction of campuses, a lot of daily, hard work is underway to rethink the current activities of universities and their development strategy. Taking into account the new infrastructure, educational programs are being updated, the research agenda is being updated, and the role of universities in the socio-economic development of regions is consistently increasing. You have set us this task more than once.

More than 400 new laboratories, almost 150 infrastructure facilities will be created in 17 new campuses, and more than 300 new educational programs will be launched. We initially linked the campus development project to our flagship government programs. These are "Priority 2030", "Advanced Engineering Schools" and "University Technology Entrepreneurship Platform".

25 universities involved in the project to create campuses are simultaneously included in the Priority 2030 program, and 15 more universities received support for the creation of advanced engineering schools.

What does this mean? Participation in these flagship government projects allows universities to use the funds they receive to update their instrument base, purchase the necessary equipment, attract young people to teach and, of course, highly qualified practitioners from production.

Another important point: in order to ensure a high level of facilities created, we have developed a single standard for the campus and its equipment. This allows you to take into account all the nuances already at the design stage: requirements for living conditions, study, research, as well as creativity and sports, and maintain a single framework for the whole country.

For example, the campus standard includes creating conditions for families with children to live in, as well as playrooms where students, graduate students and young teachers can leave their children during classes.

In general, the entire project of creating campuses is focused on people, their needs and requests. These are students, postgraduates, and teachers. Moreover, they are also residents of the respective cities. The new infrastructure will also be available to them, and therefore it is crucial for us not just to ask and hear people's opinions, but also to directly involve them in the process of creating these new university spaces.

This dialog is already working. For example, at the end of last year, at a special event at the hackathon in Nizhny Novgorod, IT students themselves identified the most relevant problems related to the construction of campuses, and they themselves developed solutions for them.

Our young people have a fresh, tenacious view and convincing arguments. The questions were precise and informative: from parking spaces and waste disposal methods to the development of youth tourism and entrepreneurship. I admit that for managers, organizers, managers of various levels, not all such aspects were obvious, and now they are taken on a pencil, thanks to the guys. We will expand this practice.

In July, a pilot project to involve students, teachers, and city residents in the design of campuses was launched in the Samara Region. All summer long, students from student construction teams worked on the construction of the Chelyabinsk campus. Their fighters acquired useful skills, felt their demand. That is, the students themselves built their student house enthusiastically and responsibly, as they say, with understanding and with a soul. Moreover, all participants of this big presidential project have such an attitude to the common cause.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, in conclusion, I would like to thank you for your decision to launch such a large-scale project. I am sure that this is work for decades to come, because its results will benefit not only today's schoolchildren, students, postgraduates, young teachers, but also their children and even grandchildren.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

The main thing is that we do not lose attention to all these projects and do not lower the quality, you understand? It is very important. This is the first one.

And secondly – as this project is being implemented, I will say more about this at the end, new technologies are emerging, and if we build today, we need to focus on what will happen tomorrow.

Please, Sergey Tsivilev.

Sergey Tsivilev: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

You know our region well, have visited us many times, and all Kuzbass residents see your sincere support and attention.

Our region is a land of coal, metal, energy, mechanical engineering, transport and chemistry. Thanks to your support, Kuzbass has entered the top five world-class scientific and educational centers specializing in exploration, production, processing and transportation of solid minerals, energy, mechanical engineering and ecology.

Our REC "Kuzbass" is implementing the country's first comprehensive scientific and technical program "Clean Coal-green Kuzbass". Kuzbass has historically been an international testing ground for testing equipment technologies for all the world's leading companies. Our goal is to become the same center for Russia and for friendly countries. We are creating a new engineering school with practice at our enterprises, we are training highly qualified and versatile specialists in our profile for Kuzbass, Siberia, the Far East and our new territories, which are similar to us in terms of economy, and Kuzbass and Donbass have always been inextricably linked with each other.

For the interuniversity campus of Kuzbass, we have chosen the best location - within walking distance to the Siberian Theater Museum Complex, which is being built on your behalf, and our Olympic Park with the Ice Palace and Kuzbass Arena, which you visited and which were recognized as the best sports facilities in the country. Together with the Ministry of Justice, we have already built a legal quarter there, together with Sberbank, we are building School 21 and a large color and music fountain, together with Promsvyazbank, we are building a theater and sports hotel.

With your support, an international scientific and practical conference on the study of the Kuzbass production forces was held in November 2023, which was based on the scientific and practical conference in Kuzbass in 1948. The conference was held with the participation of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation, representatives of the regions of Siberia, the Urals and the Far East, and with the active participation of residents of Kuzbass. More than 12 thousand people and more than 300 world-renowned scientists, including 36 academicians and 13 corresponding members, took part in person only.

The Conference unanimously supported the need to create an interagency campus in Kuzbass. Thank you very much for continuing the program of creating such campuses, which is being implemented by the Government of the Russian Federation under your direct supervision.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, please support our proposal to build the Kuzbass interuniversity campus. This campus will be open to all universities in Kuzbass.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

I think that this region deserves the kind of attention that you just mentioned.

Please, Limarenko Valery Igorevich, Sakhalin.

Vladimir Limarenko: Good afternoon, Mr President.

First of all, I would like to thank you for trusting us to build the campus. This is simply a vital position for us. We will not be able to develop our economy without a strong university.

Construction is currently underway. At first, I literally held planning meetings at this facility almost every day. Now we are pouring the foundation, in 2026 we plan to build buildings of scientific and educational properties and in 2025 – student dormitories. But I want to say right away that we are not waiting for the construction to end, and we are already starting to form laboratories now.

The red line in our conversation today is the idea that a modern campus is not only about walls, but also about new technologies. You just said that you need to go into the technologies that will be available tomorrow. We have now allocated regional funds and are building a laboratory building in the oil and gas technopark, where we directly develop new offshore technologies. This year, we want to sign contracts with Gazprom's subsidiaries to provide them with scientific and technical services, so that engineers and scientists can work there and teach students.

When scientific and educational processes take place directly in the production area, this brings us closer to the university's 4.0 technology. We are currently developing the university's strategy on the instructions of Valery Nikolaevich. We are engaged in this work with Sberbank. We are currently preparing proposals to protect this strategy in July of this year. This strategy will also include work on developing an advanced engineering school. We won the competition and were entrusted with creating an advanced engineering school in the field of hydrogen. Together with our partners – MIPT and Bauman Moscow State Technical University – we are already creating a hydrogen test site this year. In fact, it is a small plant for the production of hydrogen and a number of pilot projects on the use of hydrogen and hydrogen technologies in modern life.

We are preparing to build a large hydrogen production plant with Rosatom in a few years to supply hydrogen to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. These are our technology partners.

I would like to say that we also consider the work on the university and the development of the campus as a demographic factor, because we want our children to stay in Sakhalin, not go anywhere, to create families here, get an education, to have high-tech jobs and good wages. We also want students from other regions of the Far East to come to us.

Thus, we live and work to ensure that the university is built on time and integrated into the business processes that are currently taking place in Sakhalin.

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Dmitry Nikolaevich, please.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Dear Mr President,

As you can see, even if you look through the booklet where all our distinguished rectors and governors presented their projects, you can see that this is a very large-scale project to create university campuses, which is being implemented on your behalf. And it is a powerful driver of regional development.

To be honest, we ourselves did not expect that there would be such a scale. We see a huge growing interest on the part of business entities.

Valery Nikolaevich said that during the first wave 27 applications were submitted, during the second one there were already 39 applications. And what do we see? It is very interesting that extra-budgetary funding has increased. And business, as we understand it, will not invest money just like that. If business invested 90 billion rubles in the first wave of selection, now it is already 115 billion rubles for projects of the second selection, and together this whole project has mobilized investments totaling more than half a trillion-almost 510 billion rubles. Of course, there have never been such large-scale investments in science and education within the framework of a single program implemented on your behalf in the entire history of our country.

In addition, business, as we can see, participates in the development and content of the created campuses. As you correctly said, equipment and maintenance are also very important, and it is being developed and equipped in accordance with the specific needs of each region, which is important, together with industrial partners. Therefore, we see a lot of interesting examples where the number of regions that want to open new campuses is much higher than the bar that you set for us in 25 world-class university campuses. By the way, they are being built not only within the framework of a federal project, but also on the basis of St. Petersburg State University, ITMO, in Orel on your direct instructions, in Ulan-Ude, Smolensk, Rybinsk, and Moscow State University, as we discussed today. It is extremely important that these world-class standards, the reference space mentioned above, are respected everywhere, and we are closely monitoring this.

We also see serious groundwork in Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Murmansk, and Tula – this is a separate campus that is very interesting in the military-industrial complex-the first in our country and in other cities. There are only 23 regions that are already ready to join the project. We have them all listed at the end of the booklet.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, we will report to you separately on the proposals for extending the program and on the selection criteria. It is very important that the content agenda of the campus is in the area of constant attention of the Ministry of Education and Science and the regions, and they are all focused on the very specific implementation of your instructions to achieve technological sovereignty, training promising engineering personnel. Much attention is paid to teaching fundamental subjects: physics, mathematics, chemistry. And campuses, of course, contribute to the achievement of the national development goals that you have indicated to us.

It is very important that this is also a common responsibility: both governors, rectors, investors, and, of course, the Government. You correctly noted that you need to keep the quality up. I want to assure you that on behalf of Mikhail Vladimirovich, he controls this very strictly, we actually monitor the progress of each project on a daily basis – all information is displayed on his dashboard - and Marat Shakirzyanovich and I report on the status at weekly planning meetings. A year ago, as you may remember, we showed you a monitoring system that is being used.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, you keep telling us about feedback. I would like to say that a huge number of undergraduates and postgraduates would like to express their gratitude to you. These are those who will receive or have already received additional opportunities for self-realization, development of their talents in completely new conditions, which, of course, they did not have before. Therefore, they will be the ones who will move our science and technology forward and create breakthrough projects.

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Colleagues, who would like to comment on the topic we have gathered for? I appeal to everyone.

Mikhail Khusnullin: May I ask your permission?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, Marat Shakirzyanovich, please.

Mikhail Khusnullin: Mr President, you have noticed the project in Moscow.

If we talk about campuses, only 17 existing projects that are already in operation today are two million 300 thousand square meters. This is a huge infrastructure project.

What would I ask for? I have instructed the Government to work together with the regions to look at the most efficient use of land plots and property, both federal and regional. So that when creating projects based on the example of Moscow, we can immediately take into account both the effectiveness of the benefits of what is available and development, because I am absolutely convinced that each campus will lead to development around the territory. This is the first thing I would ask for in an assignment.

The second point is that our living expenses are very high. Of the total costs, a lot is spent on dormitories. And today, as part of an integrated development program, including housing construction and dormitories, I would also ask for instructions to prepare new approaches, especially to attract investors in this area. In the world, it is quite developed when an investor builds a hostel, and then universities use them. We still have it on some projects. If you had instructed us, we would have worked again, we have discussed this with our colleagues many times, and the governors understand this, and this would also be an additional source of improving the living conditions of students, teachers, and the surrounding areas. I would like to draw your attention to these two blocks.

And the third. For example, we are now faced with a "Single Customer". Together with all our colleagues and governors, regardless of whether it is federal money or investors ' money, we look at the quality of technical tasks and find great opportunities for optimization. For example, someone wants to build an underground parking lot. Well, we don't need underground parking on campuses, it's very expensive. We are also now reaching a certain standard, as Valery Nikolaevich said. After all, the campus should also have some standards for the new selection process. If there is an assignment, we must adhere to these standards very seriously, because then we will be able to build more high-quality facilities for the same amount of money.

These three questions, I would like to ask you if we can finalize them, are included in the draft instructions for today's meeting.

Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Good.

Now Marat Shakirzyanovich spoke about the surrounding areas. Just now, the director of the Moscow Institute, now called the University of Civil Engineering, was talking about how his university is developing, and said that Moscow was not greedy, it cut 35 hectares, and this creates an opportunity for the development of the university. Very good.

I would like to draw the attention of all the colleagues present at the meeting to this fact: when planning relevant projects in advance, keep in mind that this would be very useful for the development of a higher education institution, and everything related to a higher education institution and the functioning of a locality or city in this case. You just need to think about it in advance so that something doesn't appear next to such a modern and promising space that will hinder development, but on the contrary, you need to create conditions for the development of both the city and the higher education institution.

Marat Shakirzyanovich has just spoken about money. But we have the first part of the project – eight campuses, which is 250 billion rubles, from the federal budget 101 billion. Everything seems to be put together there. And the second stage is nine campuses, where 258 billion is needed and 103 billion from the federal budget. So far, we do not see any money in the budgets for these purposes in the coming years. You just need to talk about it in advance, work it out.

Dmitry Nikolaevich.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr President, our campuses are fully funded by federal funds. It is clear that there are some asterisks until 2030, but Anton Germanovich and I have an agreed figure of 103.5 billion.

Vladimir Putin: Very well, that means the second stage of nine campuses…

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Moreover, we understand how to finance and service the third stage financially, so that there are 25 of them. The need is even greater, we have 23 more campuses on the candidate bench.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, but this is already in the longer term. And when do you plan to start the second stage?

Dmitry Chernyshenko: The second stage has already been selected from us, and we are already planning the third stage this year…

Vladimir Putin: No, it has been selected, but when will the practical work begin?

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Different projects are at different stages, because somewhere there is a design stage, somewhere there is a pre-project stage, but all of them should be completed, put into operation by 2030, 25 will be provided.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, that's understandable. How does the Ministry view this? What is the current state of all these projects, nine of them?

Vladimir Falkov: Mr President, all nine projects that were selected in 2022 are currently being designed, there are control points everywhere, and the regions are observing everything. The region that is the leader, and we have just asked you to speak today, is Sakhalin. They were designed very quickly, and in fact, despite the fact that they are in the second stage, we laid the foundation stone, in my opinion, in July 2023. All others will withdraw from Glavgosexpertiza starting from the end of this year, and construction will start starting next year.

Vladimir Putin: Will everyone withdraw from the expert examination this year?

Vladimir Falkov: A significant part of them will be built this year, then some of the campuses will come out of the second stage of expertise in 2025, but starting from 2026 they will all be under construction.

Vladimir Putin: You should definitely take a look, Valery Nikolaevich, because in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Sakhalin in general, finances are very good now, everything is developing actively, and there are revenues, but not in all regions. They will need real help so that they can even complete projects on time.

Vladimir Falkov: We are closely monitoring the situation, because we still have concessions. There are complex relations between the concessionaire and the region. I can say that today we are moving well: we are building everywhere in the first stage, and in the second.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr President, I will add something if I may. According to the schedules that we currently have and have approved, these are legally binding agreements-the commissioning of almost all nine projects no later than the fourth quarter of 2027. Many earlier ones, including Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, are in November 2026, and that's all.

Vladimir Putin: Dmitry Nikolaevich, we need to keep an eye on this. It is necessary to look at who gets what, who has enough money, and who does not have enough. In Kogalym, Lukoil paid out, did not get greedy and did everything, but in Veliky Novgorod, Lukoil does not work, there are few large companies working there. There is no oil or gas, but people are there, and people are waiting for this project and counting on it. Not only Veliky Novgorod – and others. I'll give you a name, point a finger, and it will be about the same situation. Therefore, it is necessary to keep track of what is happening at each of these points.

Okay.

Colleagues, who would like to add something to what we are currently talking about? All? Then I ask you, Valery Nikolaevich, to prepare a draft decision so that we have such reference points, looking at which we can understand where we are at a particular moment in time when implementing this large-scale and, of course, very necessary project not only for higher education, but also for the economy and for the whole country of the project.

Thanks

Vladimir Falkov: It will be done. Thanks

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much to all the participants. All the best!

I emphasized the following, “which is being implemented on your behalf,” as it contains a very curious phrase, “on your behalf,” which IMO is odd since Putin says its all for Russia’s benefit; so, I expect it to read “on Russia’s behalf.” Otherwise, it’s as if Putin is Tsar, and the project is to enhance his glory.

What you read about is a portion of the implementation of the new Russian political-economy format, which for the lack of a better term at the moment I’ll call Social-Capitalism or perhaps Communitarian Capitalism, or as I said 5+ years ago, Socialism with Russian Characteristics. Those who know how the Soviet system worked will see its best components included in this plan and system being developed. Those who understand what Dr. Hudson’s been advocating the past 20 years will see “his hand” although he hasn’t advised Russia on anything since the 1990s.

I read Putin’s opening words to my wife and said Russia’s in a different world, the government being 100% devoted to the betterment of Russians. Sure, Putin says there’re problems as there always are when governing. But Russia aims to solve those problems and not kick them down the road or ignore them altogether. As my buddy psychohistorian constantly reminds us, this is what our Civilizational War is all about—Governance that serves the people versus parasites using government to live at the people’s expense.

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