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Taking part in the videoconference were Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin, and Special Presidential Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport Sergei Ivanov.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Before we get down to the issues on our agenda, I would like to note that yesterday marked 28^th anniversary of the Russian Security Council.

The Council established during a difficult time for Russia has become one of the most important bodies helping the President in forming the domestic, foreign and military security policy and played a really significant role in making many important and even strategic decisions over the past years.

I would like to thank you and all the employees and veterans of the Security Council Staff for your hard work, expertise and responsible approach to implementing the set tasks.

The Security Council traditionally discusses key issues related to strengthening the sovereignty, military capacity and state and public security of Russia and promoting it on the international stage, develops long-term measures for socioeconomic, scientific and technological development and carries out large scale information, analytical and expert work.

During the last months, we have been focusing on countering the coronavirus here. To date, the situation in Russia is generally stabilising, but, as I have mentioned, it is necessary to constantly and meticulously monitor the developments in every region and respond immediately.

In this sense, I would like to note the growing number of cases in the Trans-Baikal Territory: the developments are complicated, and considering this, we must help the region as quickly as possible; first of all, I mean the resources of the healthcare system.

We have already used the capabilities of the Armed Forces and the Defence Ministry to counter the coronavirus both in Russia and abroad. Only recently we have all seen how the Ministry has managed to quickly build 16 high quality hospitals in various Russian regions, how expediently they have deployed everything in Daghestan and how speedily they acted in some other regions.

I would like to ask Defence Minister [Sergei Shoigu] to get down to quickly deploying the corresponding hospital structures in the Trans-Baikal Territory: a hospital with all the necessary equipment and experts to treat patients with the coronavirus.

This is what I wanted to say to start off with and now let’s get down to discussing today’s agenda.

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