An ambitious $400 billion investment and development program was pushed back by the russian president Vladimir Putin, blaming the economic havoc wreaked by the coronavirus epidemic.
“I ask the government with the participation of the State Council to adjust the national projects within three months,” Putin said at a televised meeting Monday with ministers and officials. “We must proceed from their realities.”
The projects were meant to be completed by 2024 but now they require adjustments because Russia has to “work in conditions of stricter budget restrictions” due to the coronavirus, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Putin. “It is possible to extend the time frame for achieving the national goals that you mentioned today by 2030.”
Putin made the national projects the centerpiece of his election program for his fourth term when he won a landslide in 2018. With the original deadline extended, Putin risks seeking re-election in 2024 without having fulfilled his promises to voters, after the July 1 referendum endorsing constitutional changes that may allow him to rule for two more terms until 2036.
