The Meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights

Long read containing essential information.

Timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day, Russia held a meeting of its Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights where a great deal was discussed, some of it very newsworthy as you’ll see. Yes, it’s a quite long but essential read for those unfamiliar with Russia’s domestic approach to the human rights of its citizenry, which are far advanced when compared to its Western adversaries. Long demonized as the land of enslaved serfs and the tyrants like Stalin, modern Russia has nothing in common with those past stereotypes that form the basis for Russophobia, which we can classify and being against Human Rights. By contrast, yesterday, US neocons gloated as they confessed to the crimes against humanity they committed to destroy the Syrian government, crimes very similar in nature to those committed against Iraqis by the Neocon Clintonites in the 1990s that were called “genocidal sanctions” that killed 500K children whose deaths were seen as “worthy” by the Outlaw US Empire. Now, for the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Dear colleagues, good afternoon!

I welcome you and congratulate you on the Human Rights Day. We celebrate it today, December 10. And I would like to appeal to all those who are engaged in such noble and important activities both in the regions and at the federal level – these are human rights commissioners, volunteers, activists of non-profit organizations, representatives of the media.

You are well aware of people's concerns and needs, and you have constant, direct contact with them, and help, support, and involvement in their problems always remain an absolute priority.

I understand that sometimes it is not easy to achieve a fair solution to the issues with which people turn to you, But in most cases, you cope with these tasks, strive to do everything that depends on you. And here your authority plays an important role, the trust of people that you have earned through your daily hard work, and, of course, perseverance and the ability to defend one's position, to convince other people, look for common approaches and find compromises

The main thing is that you are always on the side of the truth, on the side of the interests of a person and a citizen. In Russian, there is a beautiful word – intercession. It fully applies to your business as well. Thank you for your unwavering response to the requests of our citizens, for your concern and sincere generosity.

I would like to congratulate Nikita Yuryevich Anisimov, Rector of the Higher School of Economics, Sergey Ivanovich Chernogaev, Chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, and Alexander Alexandrovich Malkevich, a journalist and member of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, on joining the Council. You all have extensive experience in the areas you represent. I am sure that the Council has received highly professional experts and people with an active civic position.

Today, people are waiting for participation and support in solving specific problems. They are primarily related to the realization of the rights to housing, to work and recreation, to decent wages and pensions. The social direction has been the leading one in our Council for many years.

Immediately, I would like to note your active assistance to the participants of the special military operation and their families. It is very important that you work here in close contact with the Public Chamber and volunteer organizations, with the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation.

Members of the Council help residents of territories under enemy fire. Much is being done to provide our heroes on the front line, including the products of the so-called people's defense industry. I have already said that it has become a serious industry, and we need to actively use its resources.

You regularly visit our historical territories of Donbass and Novorossiya, and know about the needs of their inhabitants. We will definitely discuss all these topics today. I would like to emphasize the importance of your work on recording violations of the rights of civilians by the Kiev regime, as well as war crimes committed by it. You continue to inform the international community about this.

Dear colleagues!

I would like to emphasize that despite certain external restrictions and difficulties that we face, our country and the state fulfill all social obligations. Thus, it is planned to allocate a quarter of the total budget expenditures for these purposes in the next three years. Although it would be correct to speak here not about expenses, but about investments, because when we allocate funds for salaries and pensions, for health care, education, culture and sports, we invest them in human capital, in saving the people in the end.

Of course, ensuring an active, healthy, long life is of fundamental importance–-this is the name of one of our national projects. We recently discussed the upcoming work on the implementation of these projects and the tasks of achieving national goals at the Strategic Development Council.

National projects are built around the individual and the interests of Russian families and relate to almost all spheres of life. This is a program of action for the whole country, for our entire society until 2030. I believe that our Council will also decide on its practical participation in the implementation of these large-scale plans.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the most important tasks is to preserve the life and health of our citizens, which implies a clear work of the primary health care system, the development of high-tech medicine and drug supply. All this should be available to people in any region of Russia. These are the issues that the Council pays constant attention to. And if you have any suggestions, I am certainly ready to listen to them, and then discuss them with my colleagues in the Government. I know that there are always a lot of questions in these areas.

You continue to discuss topics related to education, including school education, and work here together with the Ministry of Education, regional authorities, and teacher and parent communities. Much has been done to establish the prestige of the teaching profession. Teacher’s personality, worldview, ability to discover the talents of children, support their desire for development is of great importance today. And all this is directly related to the realization of the rights of both the child and the teacher.

I agree with you: the teacher should have as much time as possible for the meaningful training and upbringing to which he is called, and for this it is necessary to reduce the bureaucratic part of his work.

To be honest, we have been constantly talking about this lately–-about the overload of various reporting documents for both doctors and teachers–-for a long time, we have been talking about it all the time. I hope that something is changing for the better–-probably not so much yet. I hope that you, being persistent people, will be able to help us achieve visible results here.

At the same time, our common task is to ensure uniform high-quality standards of education. Of course, I would like to hear how the instructions given at our meeting last year are being implemented in this area.

We have repeatedly discussed digitalization issues with you. The Council's position here has always been clear. Priority is given to human rights, the inviolability of his private life and the inadmissibility of belittling his dignity.

Your suggestions will be included in the Digital Code that is currently being developed. The fact that such a document is extremely necessary, we stated at the Council back in 2021. We need to systematize our legislation in this area, consolidate the rights and obligations of all participants–-from the state to users—-and create a transparent and understandable digital environment.

I would like to emphasize that now our country has everything for a technological breakthrough in this area: a higher education system set up to achieve it, unique personnel, sovereign platform solutions that are ahead of their foreign counterparts, preferences and benefits for IT companies and specialists. Even the notorious sanctions, which were conceived by our opponents as a way to contain Russia, became an impulse, including for the accelerated development and implementation of Russian software.

But any technical solutions and innovations will always remain only a means. The goal is, of course, a person, their convenience, comfort, safety, personal and professional development.

Dear colleagues!

Russian civil society is now showing its maturity, patriotism, and ability to rally around common values and goals. People should be encouraged to participate in the activities of non-profit organizations in every possible way.

Volunteer, charitable, humanitarian, and human rights NGOs are concerned not with their own benefit and profit, but with the common good. They have proven themselves at their best both during the pandemic and now, during a special military operation, so they enjoy the well-deserved trust of people.

Our country has a huge potential for involving citizens and residents of different regions in the work of non-profit organizations. Therefore, I suggest that we think together about how to make the regulation of the non-profit sector even more modern, understandable and convenient, increase its effectiveness and, most importantly, give more opportunities for citizens to realize themselves in public life.

In conclusion, I would like to encourage you to inform the public more actively and in more detail about what the Council is doing and what issues it is considering. We act for people and for the sake of people, and, of course, people should know about this–-not only know but also be able to use what non-profit organizations formulate and offer in order to support people.

Let's get started. I give the floor to Valery Alexandrovich Fadeev. Please, Valery Alexandrovich.

Vladimir Fadeev: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Thank you for your appreciation of the Council's work. We will continue to work with equal energy on the entire spectrum of constitutional rights of citizens.

An important part of the Council's activities is working together with public authorities on your instructions, Mr Putin. I will mention just a few aspects of this work as an example.

At our meeting in 2022, we reported on the problem of mass leaks of personal data of Russian citizens. You have instructed the Russian Government to consider introducing turnover penalties against companies that allow such leaks. Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences have already been prepared and adopted.

Another task is to create a mechanism for banks to pay compensation to customers who have been victims of fraud. The Government and the Central Bank prepared the necessary draft law, and the law came into force this summer. This law protects Russian citizens and increases the level of trust in the banking system.

Unfortunately, the activity of cyber scammers is not decreasing, and the traces of a huge proportion of such crimes lead to Ukraine. Igor Stanislavovich Ashmanov, a member of the Council, prepared a report on this.

A number of instructions relate to the topic of a special military operation. In accordance with your instructions, the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation has been established, and support is being provided to the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland and other similar organizations. They continue to interact directly with family members of military personnel and volunteers. Yulia A. Belekhova, Head of the Committee and member of the Council, will report on some problems in this area.

Now let's talk about two issues that I would like to focus your attention on.

About school education. As you said, the Council is very thorough and serious about improving school education. This year, we held many meetings with our colleagues in Moscow and other regions of Russia, with principals and teachers of the best schools, with teachers of pedagogical universities. We also discussed the Unified State Exam.

There is a lot of controversy around the Unified State Exam today, and there are even proposals to cancel it. But today, the Unified State Exam is the core of the educational system, and the Unified State Exam has obvious advantages: the same opportunities for all school graduates to enroll in any university in the country, and the elimination of corruption when entering universities.

However, there is one fundamental problem: The Unified State Exam is actually a university entrance exam. In the guidelines of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Unified State Exam is called "entrance tests". But today we do not have an integral assessment of the knowledge gained by a student in the entire range of subjects. High school students and their parents focus only on those subjects in which they plan to take the Unified State Exam—this is the entire 11th grade, often part of the 10th, and there is also the OGE, this is the 9th grade. Some of the academic subjects turn out to be secondary, actually unnecessary.

For example, this year only three percent of graduates took geography, eight percent took literature, and 16 percent took more history. Why do I pay attention to these three disciplines? These are value disciplines-they help to form the cultural code of a young person, his civilizational identity.

At our request, VTsIOM conducted a survey in which it asked basic questions about the school curriculum. Of course, this survey cannot serve as a full-fledged analysis of the knowledge of Russian citizens, but it still gives some signal.

Geography question: "Where does the Volga River flow?". Of young people aged 18 to 24, only 18 percent know that the Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea. Among the older generation who graduated from the Soviet school, the correct answer is also not known to everyone, but still it is 60-70 percent. Another question is: "What does the word "Kuzbass" mean?". Among young people, only the same 18 percent answer correctly.

In literature, a somewhat tricky question: "Who did Chichikov kill in Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"?". Among young people, the correct answer – "no one" – was given by seven percent of respondents. Among the older generation – 22 percent.

This does not mean that young people are different. The young people are good, they just don't study geography or literature properly. These subjects are not a priority for them, they are not needed much for admission to the university.

How can this situation be corrected? It is necessary to encourage students to master the entire school curriculum, and not just those subjects in which they pass the Unified State Exam. So, we need some kind of integral assessment of the knowledge of school graduates. For example, the average score, as it was in the Soviet Union.

This score could be calculated as the average grade obtained by the student during the academic quarters or half-years in the course of studying the relevant subject. This average score should be taken into account when entering the university along with the results of the Unified State Exam. In fact, this will be the fourth grade: three exams plus an average score.

In what range of academic subjects? In all of them, or in the three that I have named (history, literature, geography), or in some other circle? This requires serious professional discussion. We could work together with the relevant ministries and the Russian Academy of Education to develop a mechanism for such an integrated assessment and its consideration for admission to colleges and universities.

Another topic. The Council continues to work on migration issues. This year, the Council prepared an expert report on how migration policy relates to national development goals. Many of the theses of the report are reflected in the list of instructions that you signed on October 18 this year.

In our opinion, it is especially important to increase the responsibility of employers for the migrants they invite. We are talking, among other things, about the validity of the entry of a labor migrant into the country, providing him with medical insurance, and resolving the issue of housing.

It is also necessary to create a mechanism to counteract the uncontrolled transfer of migrant workers from one area of employment to another. If a migrant decides to change their place of work, they must re-obtain a patent to work in a new place or leave Russia.

The second direction of development of the legislation is to limit the possibility of moving here for families of migrants who do not plan to acquire Russian citizenship. It is the broad circles of relatives who come to work with migrant workers that form enclaves and burden the social infrastructure. And here you need to focus on the shift principle of work: arrived-legalized–-fulfilled the contract–-left.

And another migration issue. Many visiting children do not speak Russian. There are tens of thousands of such school-age children, including Russian citizens. Vladimir Vladimirovich, you have recently pointed out the need to develop a unified federal algorithm for working with the children of newcomers who do not speak or do not have a good command of the Russian language.

Currently, the State Duma is in the process of adopting a law that will allow schools not to accept such children. And this is correct–-we have always supported this position. Children who don't speak Russian can't learn by themselves, and they interfere with others.

But what's next? According to our Constitution, parents are obliged to ensure that their children receive secondary education. So some people say, " Let migrant parents teach their children Russian somehow." I'm afraid that not everyone will do this, and some of the children will, excuse me, hang out on the street, get involved in crime and will certainly not become part of our society.

Apparently, it is necessary to create special centers for teaching the Russian language, at least if we are talking about Russian citizens. Where can I get teachers and who will pay for it? We need to find answers to these questions, and we have already sent a letter to the State Duma with our proposals on this issue.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, I have finished my report. Thanks for attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

I think that what you said about history, literature, and geography is very correct--in the aggregate—precisely because these subjects really form our cultural code, which is extremely important, extremely important.

If we turn to history, then in certain periods of history, when our people fought for their independence and for the future of the country, our opponent said that the Soviet Union wins on the battlefields thanks to teachers, thanks to our, then Soviet, teachers. That's right. And we must do this together, pay attention to it, otherwise the question of where the Volga River flows, the answer will also be known: "The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea? It is necessary that all our children have a clear, understandable answer to questions of this kind.

I totally agree. Let's formalize your proposal accordingly and work with the Government.

Please, Ionov Alexander Viktorovich.

Alexander Ionov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Russia is a leader in protecting the legitimate interests and rights of citizens. State and public institutions of human rights protection have been established and are successfully functioning in our country.

Unfortunately, for a long time we have had biased organizations that have received foreign funding and are used by the United States as one of the tools of a global hybrid war. But today they are being replaced by new human rights NGOs that set themselves clear and fair tasks of supporting and helping different segments of the population.

Well-known Russian human rights defenders and activists, Vladimir Vladimirovich, members of the HRC and the Public Chamber of Russia decided to create an autonomous non-profit organization-the National Human Rights Committee.

We have already started working with materials related to the protection of the legitimate interests and rights of citizens, the formation of monitoring and preparation for the opening of the human rights defender's school, which is designed to unite activists and social activists from various regions of our Homeland to form a new human rights community in our country.

On December 13, we will hold a press conference where we will talk in detail about the goals and objectives that we face in the context of forming a new architecture for protecting the legitimate interests and rights of citizens, as well as present the first part of the situation report on human rights in the United States. Please support this initiative.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

The information policy of unfriendly countries towards Russia and our allies continues to be well-coordinated, well-funded, and includes the blocking of Russian information resources. But today, the global human rights architecture is shifting towards the global majority.

The standards imposed by the collective West erase cultural identity and destroy traditional values. Unfortunately, international organizations that are controlled and dependent on their sponsors do not report in their monitoring on the monstrous human rights violations in Ukraine, where thousands of people accused of being connected with Russia are currently being held and tortured in prisons.

And this is happening not only in Ukraine. For links with Russia, you can go to prison and be put on an international wanted list at the request of the United States. And the case studies of activists such as Omali Yeshitela, Dmitry Simes and Scott Ritter prove this. Unfortunately, I myself am on the international wanted list at the request of the United States.

In order to further develop international human rights protection, I ask you to support the initiative to create an international non-governmental organization within the BRICS union in order to form a new global architecture of humanity. Under the auspices of this organization, a multilingual human rights monitoring portal will work, where publicly available summary information on reports on human rights compliance in different regions will be posted.

Thank you, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, thank you very much, Alexander Viktorovich.

Regarding the new organization, the new center, I fully agree with you, with your assessments of what happened before. Although many people in the previous frame of reference worked sincerely and tried to do everything possible to solve problems within the country, but, of course, we all know, of course: the one who pays, always orders music.

When we talk about financing human rights activities, we need to create a mechanism for using funds allocated either by the state, public organizations, or our companies, but create a mechanism that would separate the use of allocated resources from the source. You need to create a mechanism or some kind of system that uses the received resources independently.

I understand that this is not so easy, but we should strive for it. Because no matter how much we may anathematize what is happening with human rights somewhere abroad–-but we should also, frankly, do it—because it is still part of the information confrontation, from which there is no escape, and we must respond to it, and we must respond. but our most important task, of course, is to ensure respect for human rights in our country.

This, I believe, is also my mission, the task that the head of state, the Administration [of the President], the judicial system, and the prosecutor's office face. But, of course, all these official authorities, no matter how much they strive to solve problems in this area, still the main–-not the main, but, in any case, the very important--content part of this work is the work of a non-profit organization, because they do not work in the Procrustean bed of official standards, requirements, and any other legal requirements, then regulations. They do it from the heart, people always feel it and react very positively to the activities of NGOs.

In the end, the common task of both NGOs and government agencies is to meet people's needs. We have a common task with you. Therefore, the main thing we should do is work for the citizens of the Russian Federation. Let's work on these things together and think about it, okay? In general, of course, we are ready to support your work, and we will do everything possible to ensure that the new National Human Rights Center also works effectively.

You said that, unfortunately, you are wanted on the initiative of the United States, but there is nothing to regret. We all work here, live here. Let them deal with themselves first, they will soon put each other on the wanted list there. But these are their problems, and let's solve ours.

Please, Yulia Alexandrovna Belekhova.

Yu.Belekhova: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Thank you for your attention to the families of the participants of the special military operation and, of course, to the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland. And today these are headquarters in all regions of the Russian Federation, only the core of the asset–-about seven thousand people, people who are constantly helping the families of participants in a special military operation on a daily basis.

We implement various projects. We have a project "SVO pravo": these are already professional lawyers, lawyers who today help to protect rights. And of course, many of them are themselves families of the participants of the SVO: Alexander from the Bryansk region–-two sons are defending our country today, Albina from Yakutia, whose only son gave his life, Alexander Valeryevich Chernovtsov from Kursk, who himself took his mother out of Tetkino in August. But at the same time, the help did not stop and in no case did it become less, but, on the contrary, a "hotline" was opened to help residents of the Kursk region.

We cooperate here with the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation and the Ministry of Defense. There are a lot of requests: this year alone, there are already more than 400,000 requests from people we helped.

But we see that today people are concerned, and the issue is not easy–-the issue of missing persons. And we are often asked this question by the Committee. Yes, with the status of" missing in action", there is an obligation for the family to submit DNA, but not every serviceman has relatives. Of course, this is the time and physical cost of finding relatives, collecting analysis, and then waiting time.

And here's a suggestion. The proposal concerns that when signing a contract, when a serviceman comes on vacation or is in the PPD, there should be a mandatory delivery of DNA material. After all, there are orphaned children who have no relatives, there is simply no place to take the DNA material. There are situations when there is a relationship, they did not have time to get married, they agreed that there would be a solemn wedding after the victory, but a child was born during a special military operation, and a serviceman went missing. And here, of course, establishing paternity, if there were DNA, would be much easier. Therefore, the proposal concerns the mandatory delivery of DNA material.

The second question is the question of justice. We once received an appeal from Zoya Soldatova from Buryatia to the Committee. This is the wife of a soldier, her husband worked for 20 years in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, then retired, but a special military operation began. He, as a citizen of our country, went to defend our country, signed a contract. At that time, it so happened–-yes, they were waiting in line for housing—that they filed a lawsuit, and then there is a court decision to evict the Soldatov family from the official apartment. They lived in a service apartment, were on the waiting list, but they haven't actually received it yet. Then–-the court's decision. The bailiffs were in no hurry to comply with the court's decision, but even the bailiffs were sued to declare their inaction illegal.

You know, it would seem that on the one hand, today a fighter defends our country, but here our task is to protect his family. The last thing we managed to achieve was the suspension of enforcement proceedings against the serviceman, since he is a participant in a special military operation. But enforcement proceedings against his wife and two children have not been suspended. This is in the Year of the family.

This is not the only case. This is not so widespread, but it is very important for people. And here is a suggestion: do not evict the families of participants in a special military operation from their official housing until their right to housing or to a certificate for the purchase of housing is realized.

One more question-suggestion. As you know, on Sunday we held the "Victory Culture" project at the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Gora, where we gathered the creative work of the families of the SVO participants from all regions of the Russian Federation in order to support them once again, especially since it was on the eve of the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland. You know, there is such a place–-the Victory Museum, where you go and proudly understand the feat of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

We have come to the conclusion that there is a lack of a platform where the heroism of the participants of the special military operation will be collected today, where we, the families of the participants of the SVO, can come, where citizens can come, where they can bring children, show them, tell them. And such a place–-Poklonnaya Gora–-is a sacred place, where, of course, it is also impossible to break the past and present, because our Victory in the Great Patriotic War is a holy war–-and what is happening now should be together. And it would be nice to have such a platform on Poklonnaya Gora.

Finally, Mr Putin: thank you for your attention to the Committee. If there is an opportunity to meet with the asset, we will definitely tell you about what we have already managed, and, of course,about what we see, what offers there are.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Yulia Alexandrovna, first of all, thank you for organizing this kind of work within the framework of the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland. I keep saying that this is an extremely important area of our national activity, namely national activity. Because how the family members of children who participate in combat operations feel largely depends on their mood, emotional state, and therefore the effectiveness of their work, and even the sense of self-preservation on the front line in conditions that are dangerous for human life and health.

It's one thing when he is sure that everything is fine with his family, everything is fine, they are protected, and another thing when he is worried about what is happening to them. It seems to me that you don't need to be a psychologist to understand the difference between this inner state of a person.

It is strange that someone evicts a participant of a special military operation, and even through the courts, from official housing. It seems to me that we have provided so many support tools from all sides, both for children who risk their lives for the sake of the Motherland, and for their family members. It is surprising that some people do not understand the importance of this work. Strange even.

Give us some information, and we'll deal with it too. But in general, the topic is very important-–it is the search for missing persons. We did our best. We need to check, and I'll do it again, how this work is organized–-in relation to families of this category of people. They are working on material support before these issues become clear.

In general, as I am told, this work is well established. But I will check again how this whole program of support for families of missing persons really works. I will definitely do this, I will instruct both the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation and the Ministry of Defense. Let's check it again.

But what you said is also very important for specific people, for specific families: establishing paternity, and resolving a number of other issues, including material issues and housing issues. Therefore, I will definitely instruct the relevant structures to think about what you have proposed. These are such subtle things, but I think they protect the interests of our guys who are fighting, solving extremely complex, difficult, dangerous tasks on the line of contact.

I think it's a good offer to donate DNA, but of course we'll need to talk to specialists who work in this field.

And, of course, the proposal not to evict members of the CBO and their families from official housing, at least for the time being, while they fulfill this duty to the Motherland–-is an absolutely correct proposal. I don't see any big burden for those institutions where such questions will arise. So I will definitely support you. Thank you for noticing this.

And finally, a platform where you can write the history of events taking place today -—especially for young people—this is very important both now and in the future. This underlines the importance of the tasks that our heroes solve in the framework of a special military operation. And the site is good. We will also definitely work on it. Thank you.

If I succeed, I will meet, of course, with you, with the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland.

Thank you.

Alexey Vladimirovich Melnikov, please.

Alexey Melnikov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

As part of the work of the Commission on Civil Participation in the Development of the Penitentiary System, we have paid special attention to monitoring the implementation of your instructions based on the results of the last meeting with the Council, namely, how compensation for expenses of members of public monitoring commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation is carried out.

In continuation of what Alexander Viktorovich said, the POC is a unique institution for the whole world, which in this form exists only in Russia. When citizens with an active life position, with extensive experience in various industries directly related to re-socialization and respect for human rights in places of forced detention, can freely go to any place of forced detention under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, and so on, in order, of course, to establish public control and assistance in the development and humanization of the penitentiary system.

In general, I started my human rights work with the protection of students' rights, and then most of it fell on this institute of PMC. I am the secretary of the POC of the city of Moscow and I know about many problems. And those initiatives, those amendments that were made to the 76th Federal Law regarding compensation for expenses at least for the road, are really the most important, because the road to places of forced detention sometimes takes a considerable amount of money, and since this is an unpaid activity, compensation for these funds, which go directly to the implementation of control, is very important. the most important component of successful active work in the POC.

Also, on the basis of the commission, we have built interaction with most public monitoring commissions of subjects in order to receive feedback, since the PMC is directly the eyes, hands and feet that monitor the situation and what is happening on the ground, helping to identify and solve systemic problems. In particular, all this is reflected in the fact that our permanent commission on civil participation took part in changing the internal regulations for colonies and pre-trial detention centers.

Active work was carried out with the Ministry of Justice to introduce changes in the standards of nutrition and material support for convicts, as well as to improve the list of serious diseases that prevent detention.

There is also quite good cooperation with the expert and scientific community regarding the list of serious diseases. It was prepared jointly with human rights defenders with medical education, practicing physicians, and doctors directly from the Federal Penitentiary Service, who faced problems in identifying certain indications in order to send a person for an appropriate examination.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, the number of suspects and accused citizens held in pre-trial detention centers in excess of the limit is a rather urgent problem that hinders the further development and humanization of the penitentiary system. In general, it is worth noting that perelimit is decreasing, but, unfortunately, at a rather slow pace. This indicator is partially reduced due to the so-called unloading, when people are sent to the pre-trial detention center of another subject before the sentence comes into force, which, in fact, violates their rights.

According to the latest official data, 22 pre-trial detention centers in eight regions of the Russian Federation are currently overcrowded in Russia. The most acute situation is observed in Moscow. The only way out of this situation is to choose more often alternative preventive measures for detention, such as house arrest, bail, prohibition of certain actions, surety, and recognizance not to leave.

In general, my colleagues and I believe that if a citizen, for example, has caused damage that is measurable and adequate, and the crime does not belong to the category of particularly serious, then he can also be assigned, for example, a comparable bail, and generally apply this measure of restraint more often, and in our country it is used extremely, extremely rarely. Thus, we will unload the detention centers, and the state will save money on the maintenance of these citizens.

Today, the maintenance of one suspect and accused costs about 37 thousand rubles a month, according to rough calculations that we made together, that is, receiving information from certain representatives of the service. Given that the investigation and trials are often delayed, and a person can wait in a pre-trial detention center for a year or two while awaiting a verdict, this would probably be a good saving of budget funds, and would contribute to the development of the penitentiary system and civil society.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, this issue was raised earlier at meetings of the Human Rights Council, and instructions were given on it. A draft law developed by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is currently being considered in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. This is a good project, as part of the evolutionary development of this area of activity. I ask you to support it and give instructions aimed at finding additional mechanisms for solving this problem and improving legislation in this area. It may be necessary to prohibit by law or regulation the choice of detention for a number of categories of persons.

I regularly visit pre-trial detention center No. 6 of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Moscow. This is a so-called women's isolation ward, which also contains pregnant women and women with children. In my opinion, when women are not given a strict regime of punishment, and their detention in a pre–trial detention center is, in fact, equal to a strict regime, it is wrong to keep 70 percent of the contingent that is there–-not only specifically in pre-trial detention center No. 6, but in general in most of these institutions.

Of course, this issue requires a more thorough approach and study. Perhaps it would be possible to have some kind of dialogue and develop joint decisions with the HRC, the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Chamber of Advocates, the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor General's Office and other parties–-executive and legislative authorities–-for further development in this direction.

And the second question. Vladimir Vladimirovich, speaking about the problems of places of forced detention, of course, the problem of staff shortages remains urgent. This is the source of a significant number of the remaining problems.

And I would like to draw your attention today to the shortage of medical specialists, the level of medical support in places of forced detention, and the differences in the salaries of certified-–these are, relatively speaking, employees in uniform–-and non-certified, that is, civilian medical personnel.

I ask you to instruct the departments to provide assistance and deal with the unfair difference in salaries between medical specialists in uniform and, accordingly, civilians. For understanding: sometimes the difference in salaries in favor of civilian specialists of the same, say, category may differ by one and a half to two, and sometimes even three times. Every time I go to a pre-trial detention center or go to some penal colonies to check the conditions of detention and respect for the rights of citizens, I always ask a question about salaries, that is, I give it on the basis of the data that I myself obtained by interviewing a huge number of people. And this problem is recognized, it really is.

And, of course, it is necessary to work out what regional programs could motivate medical specialists. This problem is especially relevant for colonies remote from large settlements.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, thank you very much for doing this. So, at first glance, it is not pleasant work, but it is extremely important, because it is well known to everyone that the degree to which the state organizes work in this area in a civilized manner is largely determined by the civilization of the society itself, the state itself. Of course, this is very important.

Yes, a person has broken the law, violated it. And in cases where people are held behind investigative bodies or behind courts, it is still not clear whether a person has violated something or not, because whether he is a criminal or not, an offender, is ultimately determined only by the court, and before that a person is considered innocent, and he is held in such cases, directly for example, not very human conditions. Therefore, respecting the rights of people in these institutions, which restrict people's freedom, is of course extremely important, an important task.

And thank you, you noticed that you took part in changing the internal order, in making some changes in nutrition standards, in health care-everything is extremely important.

As for the number of people held in such institutions, it is generally decreasing, as far as I understand. Maybe I use some outdated data, but it is decreasing, as well as the number of convicts in prison–-in recent years, their number has decreased.

But that doesn't mean we should stop there. First, we must continue to work to reduce the number of this so-called "prison population", and secondly, of course, we must pay attention to the conditions in which people are kept. There are a lot of problems here. Of course, we will work together on this.

As for bail instead of actual deprivation of liberty, you can certainly do it—the same tools work for us. The issue of social justice is always raised and raised by people who hold a different point of view, saying that rich people can pay off, they can pay a deposit, but people with small incomes cannot and will sit. I generally agree with you that we need to think about this. And such tools are used in many countries of the world, perhaps even more widely than in our country. But we need to think about it, and we really need to move forward.

If there is already a draft law in the Duma, I will definitely talk to my colleagues in the Government and deputies of the State Duma, so that they will pay attention to it and carefully study it, including involving specialists like you in this joint work.

About the lack of personnel. Yes, this is really a problem, but we need to deal with the difference in the level of remuneration of those who are in uniform and those who are not in uniform. We will definitely deal with this. The agencies probably have nothing to do with this, and the issues are probably related to the so-called budget restrictions, but nevertheless these principles exist. Those who are in uniform, they have certain obligations, including in the service line, so they have the same level of remuneration, and those who are not in uniform, civilians, they are not subject to a number of requirements that people in uniform must comply with, so there is a different level of remuneration. But in general, of course, there should not be such a big difference, which is completely unacceptable. I will definitely instruct the Government to work on this.

Thank you very much for paying attention to this component.

Please, Yulia Nazarova.

Yu.Nazarova: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Today I will speak not so much on behalf of the charitable foundation that I head, but on behalf of non-profit organizations from the sector that has been actively developing in recent years.

Today, there are more than 214,000 non-profit organizations in Russia, and the contribution of the non-profit sector to the country's GDP is 1.6 percent, and this figure, I must say, is growing from year to year.

These results give us the right to say that non-profit organizations are becoming a reliable partner for the state in solving national problems, socially significant problems, in the field of education and enlightenment, of course, in the field of social support and patriotic education.

We really feel the support of the state. But in order to increase efficiency, as you have already mentioned, and in order to scale our work, simply put, to help even more people, it is important to develop solutions on three important issues. With your permission, I will read them out.

It is very important to fix the indefinite nature of the reduced rate of insurance premiums for socially oriented non-profit organizations that use the Simplified Tax System, and for religious organizations.

Thus, 22 thousand socially oriented non-profit organizations and about 27 thousand religious organizations will be able to apply the norm. When I talk about a reduced tariff, it is a rate of 7.6 percent versus, please note, 30 percent. Today, this is an exorbitant financial burden on the non-profit sector, on those people who help the most socially vulnerable segments of the population.

As one of your trusted representatives, I have already put this issue on the agenda, and you clearly supported it, and the norm was extended until 2026 inclusive. However, now it is very important to make this measure indefinite. Please support this initiative.

The second issue is to raise the limit on charity expenses taken into account when calculating income tax from one percent to three percent and include services in this norm.

What are services, what am I talking about? For example, transport companies that help us transport free, donated cargo. For example, our partner in Perm, which produces porridge to help victims in Orsk or Orenburg. So they can't pay for transport logistics, and this is certainly a problem.

I'm not even talking about the absolutely unprecedented number of sanctions that have been imposed on our Russian business, on the one hand. On the other hand, you know, the measure that was introduced in 2020 has shown its effectiveness. The amount of donations from socially oriented businesses to non-profit organizations increased nine-fold – from 10 billion to 90 billion rubles. And this is just talking about social investment: we invest in people.

And the third question: to exempt from the incoming value-added tax commodity charity transfers.

You know, working in the border areas of Kursk, Belgorod, new territories, and emergency zones, including those where a natural disaster was declared, such as in the Orenburg Region this year, my team and all the volunteer organizations that have joined in, we can see how much food and food safety is needed. the most basic help is important and necessary. Just so that people can return to their normal peaceful life, feel that someone cares about them. If we talk about something completely applied: save up for something important and necessary, for example, to repair the stove; so that the mother's custody does not take the children; or buy a refrigerator, or buy a stove, in order to be able to cook dinner.

This rule applies not only in emergency situations, but also if the company, for example, has products that are not sold for some reason, but they are absolutely suitable for consumption according to all the requirements of Russian legislation – and in terms of quality, and in terms of expiration dates. But now they are easier to dispose of than donate to non-profit organizations to help people.

I'm not even talking about the moral and ethical side of the issue and the fact that our grandparents taught us to be careful and prudent about food. For example, I was not allowed to leave the table until I had finished eating and had a clean plate. This is speaking about our traditions, about our values.

And I can't help but take this opportunity to invite you to visit the Rus Food Bank, get acquainted with the team, get acquainted with the huge number of volunteers who help us pack food, accept food, distribute food, see all these processes from the inside and understand what a "food bank" really is in Russian.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Yulia Davidovna, you have absolutely concrete proposals, and I think they are all worth working out and supporting. In any case, the reduced rate of insurance premiums for certain types of non-profit organizations, reduced VAT, minimization of related expenses and, as a result, an increase in donations from our companies. We will work through everything, everything makes sense, everything matters in order to scale your work and support it. I don't think I have anything else to comment on here. Thank you for the invitation, and I'll try to use it.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Olga Demicheva, please.

Olga Demicheva: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

At the very beginning of your speech, you said the most important thing–-about investing in saving the people. This really should be the cornerstone of what we all do together. It is impossible to talk about saving people without affordable medical care.

I want to thank you for the instructions you gave to the Government and the State Council in January of this year to study the successful experience of the Tyumen region in providing medical care to homeless and undocumented citizens and consider extending this experience to other regions of Russia.

The charity community dedicated to helping homeless people was very enthusiastic about this assignment. I must say that state structures have responded ,including ministries of social protection, ministries of Health in the regions, and religious organizations.

We have held a number of events during this time. It turned out that the successful experience of the Tyumen region is not the only one. By the way, you yourself met the bearer of this experience—the head of the charity organization "Mercy" Andrey Yakunin--when you awarded him the Order of Parental Glory, and you know what work he does in the Tyumen region in this direction. But I must say that we have many regions that have established medical care for citizens without documents.

This includes St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Moscow Region, the very successful experience of the Chelyabinsk Region, the Republic of Tatarstan, the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Republic of Adygea, the Luhansk People's Republic, and the Sverdlovsk Region. We discussed these successful practices at our round tables: they are different; they differ depending on regional specifics. But as the study progressed, the scale of the problems associated with unproven medical care also became clear.

In July of this year, a letter from the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation was issued, which was sent to all regions, about providing medical care to homeless citizens. In this letter, it was noted that emergency and urgent care for these citizens, as well as under territorial programs of state guarantees in a number of regions, palliative care, as well as assistance for infectious diseases, is provided to homeless citizens and citizens without documents. It's not always the same.

But as for planned medical care, it is often unavailable in most cases and in most regions—even where medical care is successfully provided to these people. This applies to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and bronchial asthma. This applies to a number of infectious diseases, such as, for example, hepatitis C, syphilis, HIV, and sometimes tuberculosis, although this assistance is more often provided for tuberculosis.

But these diseases, including infectious ones, must also be identified–-this also requires funds, otherwise we will have socially significant infectious diseases that we cannot control without detection. And this, too, now mostly falls on the shoulders of those non-profit organizations that help homeless people.

You know, Mr Putin, out of the 22,000 charitable NGOs that we have just discussed, only 200 non-profit organizations are helping homeless people today. Elizaveta Petrovna Glinka in 2007, when she was engaged in helping the homeless–-and at that time these organizations could be counted on the fingers of one hand in the country–-said: I help those who are not being helped.

Today, it can no longer be said that no one is helping: the Ministries of social Protection are also helping, and non-profit organizations are also helping. Now, thanks to your instructions, the Ministry of Health has also joined in helping these people. But in fact, I am still being asked for help by doctors who cannot fully help these people.

In particular, a doctor wrote to me from a large city, who was on duty to see a homeless person with incipient gangrene of the foot. During the examination, it turned out that this person's leg artery was completely obliterated and closed. So the doctor gave him a stent instead of amputating his leg, as a cheap emergency requires. For this, the doctor was presented with certain complaints from the management. Fortunately, we successfully resolved this issue, and Tatyana Nikolaevna [Moskalkova] also joined in–-I told her about this case. But this is not an isolated case, this is just an example.

But in fact, it is cheaper than repeatedly performing re-amputations of the same untenable leg. It is cheaper for us to treat people efficiently, especially since we are now talking about clinical guidelines that require people to receive proper, evidence-based medical care.

To understand the scale of the problem: today, according to Rosstat, there are about two million homeless people in the country, and about half of them do not have the necessary documents to receive medical care. Some people manage to restore these documents quickly–-in a month or two, while others take years to do so, with the help of both charitable organizations and social structures, but it still takes a long time, Mr Putin. If it's cancer or cardiovascular disease, it's a disaster: the person won't survive.

The average life expectancy of a homeless person in Russia today is 19 years less than the average life expectancy of our citizens in the country. And these are sometimes not old people who can still work and want to work. Of those whom we manage to re-socialize, there are people who create families, give birth to children, and work. And for this, we need to work hard to take care of these people.

As for the Tyumen experience, which you instructed us to study: today, in many regions, this experience is being applied in relation to regional peculiarities. In particular, just last month in the Republic of Tatarstan, a contract was signed between the Ministry of Health of the region and a leading non-profit organization that helps homeless people in the region to provide planned medical care to these citizens.

And I would also like to say, Mr President, that the history of our country knows successful examples of helping homeless people. At the beginning of the XIX century, when the Count Sheremetev's Hospice was opened, the charter of this institution stated: "To provide assistance to those in need without family or tribe, without asking for kinship." Government support in the work of such institutions is invaluable. The same Hospice of Count Sheremetev was completely taken over by the state treasury.

In our country, there should not be people who are deprived of the opportunity to receive medical care that preserves their health. Charity is part of our cultural code, it is a traditional value of our people.

I ask you, Mr President, to instruct the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation to develop a procedure for providing medical care to homeless and undocumented people and a standard for the volume of this assistance.

For our part, we, the members of the working group "Health and people's protection" in the Human Rights Council, are ready to contribute to the development of this procedure. Moreover, we hope that it will become part of a single "road map" for the gradual re-socialization of homeless people.

I would like to take this opportunity to share my joy with you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich. You know that the House of Mercy, where our charity organization accepts families with seriously ill, injured children from front-line territories, cannot accommodate all those who need help.

Thanks to the Government of Moscow, by personal order of Sergei Sobyanin, the charitable organization "Just Aid of Dr. Lisa" was provided with a new building for the House of Mercy, which is currently being renovated. We hope that in the first quarter of 2025, the building will open, and the House of Mercy will be able to receive all those who need our help. We ask you very much, Mr President, to attend the opening of this House of Mercy.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much, Olga Yuryevna.

You definitely said that this category of people who do not have a permanent place of residence is, of course, probably the most vulnerable. And there is still a lot of work to be done to support them. If we are trying to help homeless animals, then we must help people who find themselves in such a difficult life situation, if, of course, we are people ourselves. [I’d like to underscore the last phrase.]

I would like to thank you for the work you are doing and for suggesting that we develop a procedure for providing assistance to homeless people. This, of course, needs to be done jointly with the regions and municipalities–-this is the only way to organize this work so that it is effective. Such an assignment will definitely be given, and we will try to do it with your participation.

Thank you very much for inviting me to take part in the opening of the House of Mercy. But I am sure that this event will take place.

thank you very much.

Please, colleagues, who would like to say something more?

Vladimir Fadeev: Mr President, there are still reports to be prepared.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, please.

Vladimir Fadeev: Igor Alekseyevich Novikov. Please, Igor Alekseevich.

Igor Novikov: Valery Alexandrovich, thank you.

Mr President, I have two questions, both of which relate to the conditions for accumulating and implementing the human capital you mentioned.

I'll start with a short question. We have tens of thousands of children, teenagers, and adults in our country, including those who have returned from SVO, who have a significant visual impairment and loss of hand function. It is impossible to imagine the involvement of this category of citizens in education and employment, in full-time employment, without the availability of a digital environment. The Ministry of Digital Development, to be fair, has already done a lot for the development of this area, but due to well-known events, there has been a transition to domestic products, many of which remain inaccessible.

For example, an analogue of Google documents, it is not available. There are a lot of questions about Linux, which we have moved to. Therefore, I ask you to instruct the Ministry of Digital Development to organize a working group with the involvement of companies that develop domestic software, interested federal executive authorities and non-profit organizations that are engaged in developing the availability of digital environments in order to quickly prepare a vital list of software that requires the most rapid and mandatory adaptation, as well as develop criteria and parameters for this adaptation. This will make it possible to involve a fairly large volume of the population of our country in the economy right now and, of course, in the future.

Now I turn to the second issue, which is quite complex, it concerns the education of children with physical and mental disabilities, both limited and severe.

It is known that until 2012, children with disabilities were primarily taught in so-called specialized correctional schools. And since 2012, they can study at the choice of their parents: either in a correctional school, in a correctional class, or in a regular mass school.

More than a decade has passed since the first step towards inclusive schools that we took back then, and, in general, it's time to sum up some results. In general, according to surveys, the general population supports co-education, and I believe that this was an important step in the development of our society. But there are also critical problems that continue to accumulate. Here are just a few examples.

For example, in order for a child with disabilities to study in a regular mass school, appropriate conditions must be created. To do this, the region should introduce so-called increasing coefficients of per capita financing, taking into account various features of the state of health: vision, hearing, intelligence, and so on. But there is no responsibility for the absence of these coefficients and methods of their calculation. In the end, what happens? There are regions where there are some principles of financing, there are regions where there are other principles of financing, and there are regions where there are no principles of financing.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, but children with disabilities have the same needs everywhere, and autism is still autism in both the north and the east. What does this lead to? They complain about the Ministry of Education: the Ministry of Education, for its part, has prepared methods, but if the region does not want to, it will not use them.

It happens that parents in the regions unite and go to court, trying to make funding transparent, to achieve the creation of the necessary conditions. These are humiliating, shameless lawsuits. I spent a whole year studying the protocols of such cases. You know, they are much more informative than departmental reports on the education of children with disabilities. Parents are outraged, and inequality is growing. Today, after ten years, we see a huge difference between children with disabilities in different regions, and this is discrimination.

Another problem: every agency that deals with children with disabilities during their formative years—from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Labor--professes its own vision of solving problems and reports quite correctly with dozens of documents and bright events. Separately, they do all right, only as a result, as in that fable, "and the who is still there." Young people who are called to give birth think: "And if a child with special needs is born, to whom and how should I go?"

Finally, Mr President, we made the reform in 2012, but we still haven't answered the key conceptual questions: what is an inclusive environment, what is it used for, what are the criteria for its productivity, how do joint and separate training combine? After all, we gave parents the right to choose the format of training, but we did not think whether parents can always determine this format, make the right choice. Every year, there are more and more cases of aggressive and antisocial behavior on the part of children with disabilities. It's time to think about why this is.

In general, there are a dozen such problems, I have named only the key ones. As you can see, they are systemic, require political will, and not always additional funding. And in fact, they are not up to the shoulders of only one ministry.

That is why, Mr President, I would like to ask you to give me an assignment. It is probably extraordinary, but given the accumulated problems, this is the only way to solve it. I ask the Government of the Russian Federation to form a government commission on the development of the education system for citizens with disabilities. This commission should be instructed to prepare an analytical report together with the Accounts Chamber with an assessment of the effectiveness and state of the system of inclusive and correctional education.

Based on this report and taking into account the participation of scientific institutions–-the Russian Academy of Education, the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy–-to develop a unified concept for the development of the education system for children with disabilities in our country, based on the principles of the National Security Strategy, which are currently not significantly involved in any document of this problem. And finally, on the basis of all this, prepare a plan for joint step-by-step work of federal and regional authorities in solving this problem.

Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much. Let me comment on some things, or rather, express my position.

As for the digital environment, I think the Ministry of Digital Development is doing a lot of work here. But I think your proposal for using and creating the necessary domestic software is timely. I will definitely tell Minister Maksut Igorevich [Shadaev] about this. I am sure that the Government will respond.

As for the education of children with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and autism, of course, this is not an easy question. To be honest, this, unfortunately, did not fall into my field of vision. Thank you for telling me that. Why does the Ministry only write recommendations? Probably because it's a field of activity that belongs to the region, that's what it's all about. But you are right: it is not enough to regulate the issue only with the help of recommendations, which in itself is important, we need to take some joint steps of the federal center and the regions of the Russian Federation.

The fact that children with special needs may appear is another problem for our health care. Screening needs to be carried out in a timely manner, the best practices and techniques should be scaled up and implemented, so that the family can be sure that the child is healthy. We need to improve the system–-this is, of course, the task of the federal government. We have all this, and now we have it, and these systems are working, but so far there is not enough of this work. Sometimes, perhaps, you can do this much more carefully, using the most modern methods and equipment. Therefore, we definitely need to work on this, too. But this is just a matter of passing by, just what you said about it–-and my reaction.

Regarding the fact that there is more aggressive behavior in children with disabilities, it is generally necessary to think about the behavior of children and the aggressiveness of their behavior. In my opinion, this is a general issue that requires special attention from both the state and public organizations. But it would certainly be right if, on your recommendation, we set up a commission that will deal with all the issues that you have just raised and prepare a joint work plan. I agree with you. I will definitely give such an instruction to the Government.

Thank you.

I beg. Who else?

Vladimir Fadeev: Thank you.

The next speaker is Vladimir Yuryevich Ikonnikov, Chairman of the Public Chamber of the Sakhalin Region.

Vladimir Ikonnikov: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

Members of the working group on education, fulfilling your assignment, held dozens of meetings across the country with teachers, principals and students of pedagogical universities. We discussed the problem of how to protect the honor, dignity and reputation of teachers. At the meetings, teachers openly told us what situations and disrespectful behavior they encounter, how some students violate the basic rules of behavior at school, behave defiantly, allow themselves to be insulted, and sometimes behave aggressively. They told us how they spread rumors about teachers on social networks. Unfortunately, there are cases when things are damaged or physical force is used. This is because students enjoy their impunity, because the teacher has only the right to make a remark, make a diary entry, or complain to the parent. As a last resort, he will send this negligent student to the Council for the Prevention of Offenses.

About 80 percent of teachers and school principals who participated in the meetings believe that one of the most effective measures to protect them can be a behavior assessment for a student. They suggest considering the assessment for behavior in the same way as the assessment for physics, history, physical culture, and technology.

Of course, not only pedagogical experience or skills are important for rating students' behavior, but also criteria that are clear to all participants in the educational process. We are confident that the Russian Academy of Education, for example, will be able to determine such criteria. We suggest that you consider returning a student behavior assessment to our school. We believe that this will provide an additional tool not only in protecting the honor and dignity of teachers, but also in raising our children.

When we tell you about this problem, we understand that you can't just do behavior assessment and nothing else. It is necessary to educate conscious behavior or actions of students in relations with teachers and classmates, to tell and teach them moral actions: comradeship towards classmates, how to treat the teacher or elders with respect, to develop hard work, honesty, and maintain the desire for accuracy in business. In fact, we are talking about the ethics of school behavior. That's what common sense and the people we've met tell us.

We think that such work can be started already at lectures of the society "Knowledge" or at "Conversations about important things", which take place on Mondays with schoolchildren, and "Movement of the First", for example, can be used in their events.

Another task is to reduce the bureaucratic burden and regulate the duties of teachers of general education organizations. In this direction, the Council members worked together with a working group from Rosatom and the Ministry of Education. It was suggested to use the experience of lean technologies.

In several pilot regions of the country, schools were selected to analyze the bureaucratic burden on teachers, class teachers, and administrators. These are various letters, reports, tables, information, requirements, monitoring, references in various formats: electronic and paper, phone calls, and so on. Some of these reports were painlessly discarded almost immediately, while others were transformed into a more lightweight version or electronic forms.

It should be noted that the paper load on the school, of course, is also given by the executive authorities. It is gratifying that such work in the pilot regions was started by ministries and departments analyzing themselves and the outgoing documentation that comes from them to educational institutions.

I would like to say that the experience of this work in the regions was discussed and best practices were identified. There are about 42 such best practices, and we have prepared and published training materials on the Internet for those who would like to use them. And those who wanted to see this work firsthand, for example, in the Sakhalin region in November held the Far Eastern Forum of lean Technologies, where a separate section on reducing the bureaucratic burden worked. In the coming days, an interregional seminar-meeting will be held in the Vladimir Region to discuss the results of the Berezhnaya Shkola project in 2024.

We believe that it is very important to continue this work. In addition, organize training seminars and internships to spread the experience gained throughout the country.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, thank you for bringing this up for discussion. I honestly didn't even know that we didn't have a behavior score. Don't we have a behavior assessment in our schools?

Vladimir Ikonnikov: There is no such rating, and it cannot be given.

Vladimir Putin: It's clear. If it can't be set, it means that those who made such a decision had some reasons. Of course, we need to discuss this at least. I'm not ready to make any final decisions right now, but if a behavior score is returned, it should have an impact on something. I won't go into the details now, but I think you can understand me. It should be equal to other ratings.

Comprehensive measures are needed: the task is complex, so the tools should be comprehensive to solve the problem you just mentioned. We have just discussed this issue with regard to children with health problems and disabilities, but I said that in general, we need to look at this problem more broadly, and you have just raised this issue. Therefore, I agree that it is necessary to discuss this issue at least with experts and the parent community and make an informed decision. But in general, the question is absolutely correct.

About the workload, excessive reporting, and so on. Of course, everything that is possible should be converted to electronic format. This is obvious. I will definitely talk to my colleagues from the ministry, and we will discuss it with the relevant Deputy Prime Minister. Thank you for bringing up this issue. thank you.

Next, please.

Vladimir Fadeev: Mr President, the next speaker is Igor Stanislavovich Ashmanov.

Igor Ashmanov: Good afternoon, Vladimir Vladimirovich!

I wanted to talk about digital circumstances and the protection of citizens' rights in the digital environment.

You just mentioned that we are continuing to streamline this digital environment. You have just signed the long-suffering law on strengthening responsibility for illegal trafficking of personal data of citizens. This law, if you remember, could not be adopted in fact for two years, because the digital business quite strongly lobbied and fought against this law, but, fortunately, it was adopted.

And this is very good, because this is the first link for attacks on our citizens by telephone scammers and recruiters: when a recruitment or fraudulent call is made, trust is established precisely by knowing personal data–-not only the last name, first name, patronymic, address and family circumstances, but also often the loan agreement number and so on. However, the problem of this fraud and phone attacks has not disappeared.

Now the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kolokoltsev estimated, several times he said in speeches that only last year more than 150 billion were stolen from our citizens. This year, between 200 and 300 billion rubles will be stolen from citizens. These estimates are also confirmed by Sberbank independently, according to its own estimates.

Banks themselves rate such things more moderately, because they only count, as they call it, transfers without the client's consent. And if the money is withdrawn voluntarily, then given to fraudsters, they do not take this into account. Therefore, their numbers are smaller.

So that's the first problem I want to talk about. Cases have become more frequent when citizens who are "under the influence"—this is the term of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and this is quite a serious term, because experts from the Ministry of Internal Affairs say that sometimes a citizen is "under the influence" for long weeks and no amount of persuasion does not bring him out of this state. such citizens have now begun to take away apartments.

The first thing I want to ask is to instruct the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee, the Interior Ministry, and the FSB to think through some legislative measures that would somehow allow, as they say now, to create a "cooling-off period" after real estate transactions, which would not immediately allow this money to be stolen. So that when a citizen realizes that his apartment has been taken away, at least it is impossible to take money for this apartment from him. This is the first one.

However, this problem is broader than just property damage, although it is huge and growing. These are, in fact, now the means of the Kiev regime's war against our people. This is organized state crime, because all these so-called contact centers in Zaporizhia, Kharkiv region and so on operate with the support of the state and the SBU. It is clear that this is not only fraud – there is recruitment, intimidation of military families, harassment, and so on.

As a result, fear of a phone call has arisen in the country. People are really afraid to take calls from unknown numbers. In fact, not everyone is aware of how many of these calls there are. According to estimates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Sberbank, 10 to 20 million criminal calls are made daily–-recruitment, fraudulent, and so on.

What is important to know about them? First, the vast majority of these calls are made from Ukraine. Secondly, these are calls via Internet telephony: these are so-called IP calls. This means that some accomplices on our side are landing them on our regular phone networks.

The Federal Security Service this year finally began to fight these centers—these are private data centers (data processing centers) with a huge number of so-called SIM boxes, that is, routers that insert thousands and tens of thousands of SIM cards. In the spring, they arrested dozens of people, seized 200-300 thousand SIM cards that someone sold to these scammers. These are accomplices who, in fact, on our territory take money stolen at the previous stage from Ukrainian fraudsters in order to help them steal the next money from our citizens.

When we are already struggling with an attempt to take over property, this is still a consequence. It should be understood that the volume of calls is such that it cannot work without assistance from mobile operators or their partners in the territories and regions. It is clear that something must be done about this. SORM tools [systems of technical means for providing operational search functions] allow calculating such private data processing centers. This activity should continue.

But, generally speaking, in our opinion, Roskomnadzor now has quite powerful tools, the so–called technical means of countering threats—TSPU—which allow you to block this wave of Internet calls from Ukraine or at least slow it down. This is important, because then their number will drop at least tenfold. Yes, there will be a fight of shield and sword; somehow, they will leak through the side doors, they will start calling from Finland or Norway. Nevertheless, in our opinion, it is worth doing.

Maybe [there will be] a small problem with legitimate calls: either this is the operational activity of our special services, or these are relatives. But their number is so insignificant compared to this shaft. You just need to create a different technical capability for them, and this is also possible.

In addition, we must also understand that these scammers and recruiters, who are waging, in fact, a war against our people in this way, use the authority of the state in the vast majority of cases. They call on behalf of government agencies, that is, they call either on behalf of banks, on behalf of officials, on behalf of various government agencies, allegedly investigators of the prosecutor's office, public services, and so on.

Here it would be worth doing such a thing: to instruct the official authorities to call citizens only from a fixed set of numbers or even from a fixed telephone connection. Simply prohibit bank managers or government officials from making calls as they feel comfortable, from lunch on their mobile phone, or even via WhatsApp or Telegram, as is now very common. Because this makes life easier for scammers who use the authority of the state in order to divorce our citizens and, accordingly, undermine the authority of the state.

Naturally, all this can not be done if you do not prohibit the substitution of numbers. Currently, number substitution is prohibited for providers and mobile operators, but this is an administrative offense for them, and it is not prohibited for individuals at all. In other words, you can do anything in these private data centers. And this, generally speaking, should be an offense. You don't need to switch numbers for anything, and you certainly don't need to help scammers do it.

Accordingly, the Council asks to instruct the Ministry of Digital Development, the Government, and Roskomnadzor to work out the issue of these three things: blocking or slowing down the flow of calls from Ukraine, prohibiting the substitution of numbers, and creating a pool of official numbers for officials.

And one last thing. I wanted to say thank you for mentioning the Digital Code. It is very important. Because, despite the fact that good laws are being passed—now it is [being done] out of urgency, because we need to quickly plug holes, this is such a patchy process—we need to finally create an orderly code in which everyone will understand what is possible and what is not possible in our country: both society and citizens, including digital businesses. But it seems to me that over the past year, this process has stalled a little, there is no movement there. Can this process be pushed somehow?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. The topic is vast–-the digital environment and citizens' rights. Here, at every step in the development of the digital environment, there is a problem with the rights of citizens, this is absolutely certain.

As for citizens who are "under the influence"... Of course, I will definitely draw the attention of the Prosecutor General's Office and all law enforcement and regulatory agencies to this once again. I will definitely point out this problem to them again.

About the fact that certain actions are being taken from the territory of Ukraine. This is absolutely certain, and we know it. This is elevated to the rank of state policy, it is one of the lines of attack on you and me, on our population. This is often done simply by state bodies or structures that are under state Ukrainian control. This is definitely one of the attack lines.

So, of course, Roskomnadzor and our other agencies will be given such instructions. This also applies to blocking-–you just need to think through everything. Of course, operational activities will not be affected here, but as for individuals and users, of course, you need to look at everything.

All three points that you have mentioned and on which you propose to issue instructions will be summarized, and this instruction will be formulated.

And on the Digital Code: we will also try to give an additional impetus to this work. Thank you.

Please continue.

Vladimir Fadeev: Mr President, we still have two performances planned.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

Vladimir Fadeev: Thank you.

Evamikhailovna Merkacheva, columnist for the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. Eva Mikhailovna, please.

Elena Merkacheva: Good afternoon!

I will allow myself to tell you a little bit about the fact that every person should be sure that they will not be subjected to illegal criminal prosecution, and if they are, they will be acquitted. Unfortunately, today the number of acquittals is equal to 0.1 percent. But juries are acquitted in 25 percent of cases. But there are very few jury trials. In our country, for example, in the first half of this year, jury trials have dealt with less than a thousand cases.

This year marks the 160th anniversary of the judicial reform that introduced jury trials and the Institute of advocacy in Russia. A wonderful series about the legendary lawyer Fyodor Plevako has been released. Plevako was one of the ideologists of jury trials. He said: "Man cannot live without God, the state without law, the law without execution, the strong without duties, the weak without rights, and the court without mercy."

So, a merciful court and a fair trial can be provided by a jury. But he has a lot of opponents today. They claim that the legislation on criminal proceedings involving jurors was allegedly based on foreign, alien laws. That's not so.

It is based on the norm of our national law—the Statute of Criminal Proceedings of 1864. But the roots of jury trials go back to the distant past. The participation of representatives of the people in the administration of justice is our national tradition. Already in the XI century, according to Russkaya Pravda, the so-called men of judgment sat in the courts. There were 12 of them, and this court Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin called it: "the jury trial". An ancient custom--a court with the participation of 12 husbands--was developed in Novgorod, for example, in the XIV century, where representatives of the people's conscience, as they were called, sat in the courts. It was they, and not the prince, who played the main role in the court. The idea of jury trials is deeply rooted in our lives and is inextricably linked to our national vision of justice.

Opponents of this institution make a second argument: they say that jury trials are very expensive for the state. But everything is very relative. Look, at present, the salary of one juror per day is about a thousand rubles. I note that the day of keeping a person in a penal colony costs 2-3 times more. That is, the acquittal of innocent people clearly pays for a jury trial. And how can you talk about money when it comes to justice and mercy?

The legendary lawyer Anatoly Koni–-and his statue stands at the entrance to the modern Ministry of Justice—said: mercy, encouraging the jury to acquit the defendant, is a higher blessing than mechanical adherence to the letter of the law.

The jury trial itself, of course, is probably not without drawbacks today, but no one has come up with anything better. The fact that jury trials are rarely used now has led to the fact that, unfortunately, the quality of investigation in our country is beginning to fall, and the standards of evidence are declining.

I'll give you a few examples that are quite recent. Just in February of this year, a court in Novosibirsk found a man guilty of murder. He was punished and given a harsh sentence. So, in November of this year, the woman he was accused of murdering was found alive, and I personally spoke with her. It's been more than three weeks now, and no one has been quick to apologize to this man, and he's still in jail. This is just about the fact that the standard of proof in this case was clearly violated.

But we have a huge number of cases, not only on murders, but on other articles, including pedophile, terrible articles that are based only on reservations. There are words of a person, and nothing else.

I will give you another example, which, I think, was very bright. In Tambov, a woman was convicted for sending an SMS message to her husband's ex-wife. It was an offensive message, and it was read by the eldest daughter of this husband, the girl was nine years old. So, for what she read, and in this message there was an obscene expression using, so to speak, a sexual organ, she was given six years in prison. She herself has a small child, she was separated now from her four-month-old daughter, sent to the pre-trial detention center, she is sitting there.

This is a very clear indicator, because, in fact, then we have half the country pedophiles: someone is not at home-no and swear. And the number of them–-not only on these articles, on the 228th, many, many others, which are based only, I repeat, on some words, speculation—is growing and growing. This is just about lowering the standards of proof.

What am I asking for? I would very much ask you to give instructions to expand the number of cases that fall under the jurisdiction of jury trials, to include cases under the 132nd, 228th [articles], economic crimes and many, many others. And pay special attention to the cases of the so-called past years. We are now reporting that they are all almost solved. This is very strange, because the crime was committed 20-30 years ago, and now, unexpectedly, for some reason, the investigation has found the perpetrators. Despite the fact that testimony is usually given either by secret witnesses or those who are held in colonies for life convicts-they do not care at all who they point a finger at, and people are put in jail for this.

I would also like to say that people are now reluctant to go to the jury themselves. And why? Because the salary is low. I would ask you to consider raising this salary. And I would ask them to develop mechanisms to protect their decisions. To date, the investigation, when the jury passes sentences in the form of the prosecutor's office, which in our country plays the role of prosecution, they do not agree with this, and in most cases all acquittals are challenged.

There are cases when juries of different compositions acquitted a person two or three times. As a result, the prosecutor's office still did not agree and sought to give him a real term. And at the same time, people understood that it was better not to go to a jury trial, because it can last for decades, probably – there are no such cases, but there are cases for five years: when a person was in prison for five years before being given a decision, because the jury decision was always overturned.

I would also like to say a little more about the overcrowding in the pre-trial detention center. The issue has already been raised here. I propose a solution that is once again rooted in our traditions. It was said that there is such a technology, for example, to bail. In Russia, this was long accepted. In the modern Code of Criminal Procedure, article 103 provides for surety, but this article does not work. I myself have many times vouched for disabled people, pregnant women, and those with many children. Often entire teams of doctors, teachers, and scientists write sureties for their colleagues, ask them to remain free until the verdict, and guarantee that they will not escape, but the courts do not bail them out.

I think that, probably, the reason is that the law prescribes the responsibility of the guarantor is insignificant, only in the form of a monetary penalty. It may be worth considering strengthening it. In general, the institution of suretyship develops civil society. By the way, even those already found guilty in Russia, the court in some cases gave bail, and did not put them in prison. So, the guilty peasants were given on bail to local residents – they took on the obligation to re-educate the person, wean him from drunkenness, help with work, and so on. I think it's a wonderful institution, let's resume it now – why not apply it to our realities?

And one last thing. Mercy has always been in demand in society. "It is better to make a mistake in mercy than in execution," wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky. Last year I asked you to pardon the women, and you did it by March 8 – thank you very much. I ask you to continue this tradition, let it be a tradition. I ask first of all, of course, for the women. I would like to see all women convicted for nonviolent crimes for the first time be pardoned, as well as all women who have young children waiting for them at home.

I would like to point out that women by their very nature are not criminal–-they do not have such criminal thinking, they do not belong behind bars. Most often, they are brought there either by a random combination of circumstances, or a difficult life situation, or a mental illness. The colony has not yet made any of them exactly better and healthier–-especially against the background of the absence of psychiatrists, gynecologists, and therapists in the absolute majority of institutions.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much for raising this issue.

Two words as a comment. Of course, the jury trial is a fairly democratic institution of judicial procedure, and it has a good history in our country. This is obvious. After it was introduced into the Russian legal system, it led to the emergence of a whole galaxy of absolutely brilliant lawyers.

This was due to the fact that it was possible and necessary to influence the jury's decision: guilty or innocent, guilty and deserves leniency. And in order to influence non-professional lawyers, it was possible and necessary to speak not only convincingly, but also beautifully. And that's why Plevako, Alexandrov and a whole galaxy of outstanding lawyers appeared, of which our history of law and legal proceedings, of course, is proud–-and rightfully proud.

But the history of the use of this institute is more complicated than it seems at first glance. Let me remind you that the same Kony who, as I recall, acquitted Vera Zasulich, who shot Trepov, by a jury decision, was eventually dismissed and then worked, if my memory serves me correctly, as a lawyer.

So even at that time, it was quite difficult to organize it in the broadest sense of the word and in accordance with the laws that were then adopted. Kony didn't break anything, he was acting in accordance with the law. But still he was asked to leave this place, and he was forced to leave it. You just need to look carefully. The institute itself is good; it definitely needs to be developed.

You mentioned our realities. First, what are the realities we live in? Conducting a special military operation. And we do not introduce the death penalty at all, despite the fact that, I assure you, and you probably know this, we have a significant number of citizens and politicians all the time raising this issue. But we do not take this step even in the conditions of military operations, and quite serious military operations. On the contrary, we are taking a number of decisions to improve the humanity of our justice system, as I have already said, we are also reducing the number of people in prison, and so on.

But that's not all. In some regions, in some territories, in the event of such a broad expansion of this institution of trial by jury, it will be difficult for jurors to make fair decisions at all–-I ask you to keep in mind when you talk about our realities. They are as follows. And it is not always easy for professional judges to do this. Sometimes it is necessary to transfer the consideration of court sessions to other regions of the Russian Federation, and not at the place where a particular offense was committed. But for serious reasons, it will be very difficult.

However, you are absolutely right. I, like you, also support expanding the use of the institute of jury trials. We will definitely move in this direction. But this movement of ours must correspond to the real situation that is developing in our country and which you yourself mentioned. In general, it should correspond to the readiness of our society to apply this institution more widely. But I cannot disagree with you that it is necessary to apply it and expand it, too, otherwise society may never be ready for it. Together with you, we will definitely move along this path.

Thank you.

Please, who else?

Vladimir Fadeev: Mr President, if I may, Marina Magomednebievna Akhmedova, Editor – in-Chief of the REGNUM News Agency, will make a closing speech.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

Maria Akhmedova: Mr President, good afternoon!

This year, members of the HRC worked in the Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions. We went to the Kursk region immediately after the offensive, and there we identified the needs of people, and then we worked on a par with volunteers in temporary detention centers and delivered, bought, collected–-and there was no merit in this at all, it was simply impossible to stay in Moscow when there was such trouble in your country and with your people.

And all sorts of people we met. In the Kursk region met the father of five children Roman Yatsenko. He was working in Moscow when the offensive began and immediately left for Suja, where he managed to get to his home. He took his children out under the fire of mercenaries, and foreign mercenaries shot at his children with aim, and these are small children.

We met young men and women who were returning to the most dangerous places to pick up strange old people. We met Imam Isa Salimsultanov, who has already taken out more than half a thousand people–-and not a single Muslim, among them all Orthodox. And of course, we met people who were already beyond help, just listening.

In the Belgorod region, we regularly work in a hospital on the first line, where fighters are taken directly from behind the ribbon. And there I constantly see doctors who are falling off their feet from fatigue and, probably, are already working out of this Russian habit–-to ask themselves the question: who, if not me?

And I've seen doctors take drone fuses out of wounds with their bare hands. Once a soldier was brought in with a fuse in his body, and it was necessary to call an urgent sapper group, but there was no time, because the fighter was bleeding heavily, and a young surgeon Brass Knuckles took everyone out of the operating room, left alone with this wounded man. I asked him if he was aware that he might die because of a stranger or lose his hands for sure. And he said that it was his free choice, he was a soldier at that moment and had to behave like a soldier. And he added that the victory will definitely be ours. We requested that he be presented for the award.

In the Donetsk People's Republic, my colleague Belekhova and I work with appeals from military personnel. I come to one military unit–-I told you about it last year, by the way, and when I started going there and just met these soldiers, they were, of course, absolutely confused people, somewhere intimidated. Now they are completely different people. They have learned how to fight, and they are very effective people. I visited them in October, and they say that they do their work in the same way as they did in their cities, when they stood at the machines in factories, in schools, when they worked as teachers and engineers. Their task is to do their job as well as possible.

In my mind, all this has come together in a year in a kind of buzz of time, in the current of our lives. But what was the point of it? I talked to Valery Alexandrovich Fadeev about the meanings and achievements, and he said that it seems that the most important achievement of our time is that we managed to survive and determine the world order, although they want to destroy us from all sides.

I think that you understand this very well, as a person who took over the country in a practically crumbling state and managed to save it. Now we are all united around this meaning–-to protect our country, and many people understand that "if not me, then no one".

We, as a people, have taken the direction of victory. When you confront aggressive countries or tighten the nuclear doctrine, of course, it is a little scary, but we are not passive observers in this either. We support you, we are close, we are around. Victory is our deepest desire. I believe that when we get together next year, we will be able to congratulate each other on the victory.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, thank you very much. I understand that you do not have a problem question, not suggestions, but a statement…

M. Akhmedova: This is support for you.

Vladimir Putin: I understood, I heard. Thank you very much for this support. Thank you for doing this work yourself. I don't know if the surgeon you mentioned is eligible for the state award. We need to find it and do it without fail. This is a distinctive feature of [many] of our people–-not to make public what is being done, but to do it according to the call of the heart. This is an extremely important thing.

We were just talking to a colleague who was talking about a jury trial. When the jury trial was introduced, many people went to court sessions like to a theater. It is no exaggeration to say that it is like going to the theater, because a completely new tool in legal proceedings, such as publicity, in the broadest sense of the word, has been brought to life. It was necessary to influence the jury, it was necessary to speak convincingly and beautifully. As I have already said, a whole galaxy of outstanding Russian lawyers has emerged.

This is generally good, and we are rightfully proud of it. But most people, when they do their duty, are far from public. Here are the guys who are on the front line, what kind of publicity is there? Sometimes they risk every second-they risk their lives and health, they go forward, liberate territories, our people are released in the so-called new territories, which are historical at the same time. They simply fulfill their duty to the Motherland and, of course, need help and support.

You talked about tightening the nuclear doctrine. We are not tightening the nuclear doctrine–-we are improving it. And so, by and large, we now need not to improve the nuclear doctrine, but because of "Hazel," if you look at it, a sufficient number of these modern weapons systems makes it almost clear that there is no need to use nuclear weapons.

That is why we behave quite carefully in all areas, I would even say with restraint, but where necessary, we show the necessary will both at the state level and at the level of citizens of the Russian Federation who live here and want their children to live here, consider Russia their homeland and are ready to do everything for its fortification.

I would like to thank you for carrying out such a responsible but very important part of the work that you are doing. Thanks!

If you have one or two more questions, please do so. We still have a few minutes.

I ask you to.

Y. Vlasov: Vlasov Yan Vladimirovich, All-Russian Union of Patients.

There are two very hot issues that, unfortunately, cannot be overlooked in the healthcare system right now.

The first of them is the clinical guidelines that were discussed today, but this topic is slowly being resolved. If you "pull" clinical guidelines out from under the health care system, it will simply collapse right now.

The second problem is more important – the availability of innovative medicines for modern patients. Thanks to the Ministry of Health, the Government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we have taken positions on copies of old medicines quite well, and we are provided for here. But we have a big problem with new medicines. Now there is a question about the effectiveness of the Commission on VED of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, which is designed to make these high-tech drugs available.

Due to the fact that we currently have almost no foreign clinical trials, the availability of these life-saving drugs is becoming an extremely important problem that needs to be solved. Unfortunately, we will not be able to replace these drugs soon. Therefore, the question now is: will the VED Commission under the Ministry of Health allow these medicines to be made available?

What is the problem? The problem is that to date, the criteria that according to the 871st Government decree exist for the availability of these medicines are not fulfilled by the Commission, and if they are fulfilled by the Commission, then for some reason the medicines are no longer included in the restrictive list, and they are constantly being revised. By and large, there are real difficulties for medicines that we cannot produce ourselves yet. There are serious suspicions that they will not be available for our patients.

Thus, issues related to life expectancy, issues related to demographic issues, and orphan diseases, despite the richness of our positive practice that has now been made, we will not be able to solve.

There is a proposal that the Government of the Russian Federation should develop criteria for the availability of new innovative medicines to the Russian market and to the Russian patient. This is the first one.

And the second is to allow the introduction of representatives of the patient community to the VED commission under the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: You know, I think both are correct. As for the development of criteria, in my opinion, they are available. But if you think that this is not enough, that they need to be improved, then you should do it.

And nothing prevents us from introducing representatives of non-governmental organizations to this commission, who, on the other hand, on the part of patients, are paying close attention to this.

Therefore, I definitely recommend that the Ministry of Health implement what you suggest.

Y. Vlasov: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

Alexander Kots: Mr President, may I ask your permission?

Military correspondent of the Komsomolskaya Pravda media group Alexander Kotz.

You just said that we are releasing our people in a special military operation. I'd like to put in a good word for them.

We have been practically conducting offensive operations all year, more actively in some areas and less actively in others. And, accordingly, the number of refugees that we have is increasing. These are our people to the core. Because the unfortunate people we are taking out of Selidovo now, and this year they were taken out of Avdiivka–-are people who stayed on purpose. They suffered hardships, lived in basements, cooked at the stake in order to go not to the Ukrainian side, but to our side, to wait for their release, to wait for our units and go to Russian territory, to get a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and become a full citizen of our country.

And they send me photos of the PVR where they are taken. It seems that the conditions in their basement in Selidovo were better than where they are taken out. You start to find out, contact the heads of various organizations, and it turns out that our city is not even responsible for the financing of PVR, but rather the republic or region. And this is a frontline city, it has no financial capabilities. It cannot provide a decent reception, not because some people there are soulless, but simply because they do not have such opportunities. After all, this is probably not a city problem, but a federal one. These are thousands of people who come to us.

Right now we don't know anything about the refugees from Artemivsk, Popasna, or more or less from Avdiivka, because perhaps we don't have any body that would be purposefully responsible for refugees? But if not the Ministry of Refugee Affairs, then some department in the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection.

Maybe we should look at the successful experience of the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation and the Military Support Center for Military Personnel and Their Families, and create a similar center for refugees, of which we will have thousands and thousands more, because we still have many liberated cities ahead of us, and so that people who have specifically stayed there will be able to in order to join the Russian world, they were not disappointed in it.

This includes image-related things: when people have a connection, they start calling their friends who have left for Ukraine. There, too, refugees have nothing to brag about, to be honest. We need to promote the idea that the Russian world welcomes its own people in a hospitable, cordial, and sincere way, and does not begin to arrange bureaucratic football. People who have already experienced several months of deprivation are forced to run around their offices, knock out something for themselves, arrange children for school, look for housing, re-register cars from Ukrainian plates to Russian ones, and all this in a hellish circle of bureaucracy. If there were a body like the committee of defenders of the fatherland, where these refugees could apply, it would be, I think, very cool and correct.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. Thank you for noticing this, to be honest. I understand that this problem is acute and not easily solved. First, of course, the refugee situation in our country is much better than in Ukraine itself. There, people from Ukraine, once in Ukraine, then through various channels–-through Turkey, through other countries–-try to enter the Russian Federation. We see this flow and record it.

As for the people directly who have found themselves in some unsettled ramps [tents] from the line of contact, we need to deal with this, and we will definitely do it. Is it necessary to entrust this task to such a structure as the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation? I don't think so. Because the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation should deal with defenders of the Fatherland first of all, it was created for this purpose.

To be honest, I did not even immediately agree with the proposal of the Minister of Defense [Andrey Belousov] to make Anna Tsivileva Deputy Minister of Defense, because I believed that it was necessary to focus on the work of the Fund to Support our children who are leaving the line of contact, and their families. But, nevertheless, the Foundation's work continues, and it may have become even more focused. I must agree with the Minister here, because I think it is possible to combine both the capabilities of the Fund and the capabilities of the Ministry of Defense.

But the question you raised is certainly extremely important. We need people who want, strive and put into practice their plans to live, build their future and the future of their children in Russia. Of course, such people should be supported – this is quite obvious. I will definitely draw the attention of my colleagues to this. And, perhaps, we really need to think about some structures that deal with such issues purposefully.

I would like to thank you all once again for the work you are doing. It is always important, and in modern conditions it is doubly, triple in demand.

One of our colleagues who spoke just now said that the goal of all our work today is to strengthen and restore the new world order. This is very important, but that's not the goal. The goal is to strengthen Russia itself. The goal is to protect her, to protect her future. And this work is being carried out in a number of areas.

Of course, decisive events take place on the line of contact within the framework of a special military operation. But in order for the country to meet all these challenges, it must work effectively in all the areas that you have raised today. I repeat: in some areas of common joint work, the activities of non-profit organizations and volunteers are so much in demand that it is even difficult to imagine any situation in our history… Of course, there have been such situations in our history, but today it is especially important, because communication with people, understanding what is happening in the country, and finding the most effective tools to support people are extremely important. Here, it is almost impossible to achieve an effective result of joint work without such cordial work with people, which can be carried out not by bureaucratic structures, but only by organizations like you–--where people work not for wages, but at the call of their hearts. I want to thank you for that. We will do our best to support you.

And Happy New Year to you! Thank you. [My Emphasis]

Initially given the intensity and suddenness of the Syrian tragedy, I was going to omit translating and publishing this event. I’m very glad I changed my mind. It wasn’t just because of Putin’s somewhat whimsical remark about Oreshnik being capable of replacing nuclear weapons, which is what news media highlighted; rather, it’s because of the need to demonstrate the vast difference that exists between Russia and its adversaries when it comes to caring for the human condition. There are two specific areas mentioned that I have experience with—special education and homelessness—where I deeply appreciate Russia’s efforts on homelessness, and the extremely hard to fix issue of special ed and violent, unruly students who are often one and the same—this happens to be a global problem, particularly within industrialized nations who’ve deeply polluted their air, land, and water, which have generated the causes for the vast array of learning disabilities that confront parents, educators, and society. The greatest chasm is health care as a human right, which Russia accepts and willingly addresses, which however is rejected by the Outlaw US Empire, although some of its states differ and accept that human right. Some of the testimonies given were also well worth reading along with some of the Russian maxims that accompanied them. That Russia has the same problem as here within the Empire of the innocent poor stuck in jail because they can’t afford bail even though they haven’t been found guilty of anything is very unfortunate and needs to be resolved.

This last observation by Putin bears repeating:

One of our colleagues who spoke just now said that the goal of all our work today is to strengthen and restore the new world order. This is very important, but that's not the goal. The goal is to strengthen Russia itself. The goal is to protect her, to protect her future. And this work is being carried out in a number of areas.

IMO, to accomplish the global goal, the primary goal is 100% essential. And that goes for the entire Global Majority.

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