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During the meeting, a number of social facilities were opened in the new territories, including the Zapadny Stadium in Mariupol, a swimming pool at the Pervomaisk Sports School, the Severodonetsk Specialised School No 17 in the Lugansk People’s Republic, a chess school at the Sports School No 1 in Melitopol, a fitness and health centre at Novoalekseyevskaya School No 2 in the Genichesk District of the Kherson Region.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Today, our agenda includes issues of rebuilding and developing the economy, social, transport and other infrastructure in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

We are addressing this large-scale and significant issue all the time. We have joined hands with our colleagues from the Government and regional teams to assess the situation in each of these territories of the Russian Federation. We monitor the implementation of key projects aiming to create jobs and to improve people’s living standards, we also assess the level of coordination between public authorities, state corporations, the business community, as well as the patronage assistance to Donbass ad Novorossiya provided other Russian regions and cities.

Today, we will look into all these issues once again in the context of the latest incoming regional data, compare and coordinate our approaches, and see where additional efforts and focus are needed.

I have already mentioned efforts by the federal Government, regions and teams from our major companies. In all, this includes 41 federal agencies, 26 state companies and 82 donor regions.

I would like to recall that key goals were formalised in the programme for the socioeconomic development of our historical territories that have reunited with Russia. We have to accomplish all of its objectives in full measure.

By 2030, the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, along with the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, are expected to reach the national average across all key indicators, particularly in terms of the quality of life.

Achieving this goal will require the construction or renovation of educational, cultural, healthcare, and sports facilities, the development of road networks, housing, and public utilities, and the enhancement of overall social infrastructure. It will also involve creating new, well-paid jobs and fully unlocking the vast potential of Donbass and Novorossiya.

I would like to highlight that the programme includes approximately 300 measures, and work across all areas is being carried out in a consistent and well-organised manner.

It is particularly important to note that, despite the well-known challenges – including those related to security and the overall complicated situation – significant progress has already been made. The integration of these regions into Russia’s economic, educational, social, and legal frameworks is actively progressing.

Since 2022, nearly 23,000 facilities (approximately 22,800) have been restored or newly constructed. These include residential buildings, schools, hospitals, outpatient clinics, utility systems, and power grid infrastructure.

More than 5,400 kilometres of roads have been repaired, including key sections of the Novorossiya highway. This route has not only established a land corridor connecting Crimea with the rest of the country but is now also part of the Azov Ring, a modern highway encircling the Sea of Azov, which has effectively become an inland sea of Russia. This highway will give a strong boost to the development of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Krasnodar Territory, the Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as the Rostov, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions, further connecting them and strengthening their integration into Russia’s national transport network.

Plans call for the restoration of over 9,600 kilometres of roads across Donbass and Novorossiya. This effort aims to raise the proportion of regional and inter-municipal roads that meet national standards to 60 percent, bringing these regions in line with the all-Russian benchmark.

Providing housing to our citizens remains a central priority. In order to accomplish this, it is essential to increase housing construction volumes through the active formation of land banks and the creation of attractive conditions for developers, taking into account their readiness to operate under complex conditions.

Meanwhile, programmes for the major renovation of apartment buildings and relocation from dilapidated housing will continue to be implemented across the country. We will also discuss this today.

Special focus should be on support for all sectors of the economy, such as industry, agriculture, the financial sector, banking infrastructure, and, of course, small and medium-sized businesses. An entire complex of tools and mechanisms, such as subsidy programmes, preferential lending, and free economic zones are already operational. Today we will review them for relevance and effectiveness.

I would like to repeat: the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have enormous industrial, agricultural, logistics, and economic potential. These regions have made substantial contribution to national development, both during the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods, hosting strong scientific institutions, professional schools, and highly qualified specialists.

Of course, when they were part of Ukraine – especially during the last decade – these regions were funded far inferior to their need, resulting in their significant decline. The current objective is to revive and fully realise their vast potential, initiating a powerful economic restart and development, enhancing financial sustainability, and strengthening self-sufficiency of our historical regions. We have all the resources and capabilities to achieve this.

Above all, the priority is to ensure that people see changes for the better, so that they feel comfortable to return home, work, raise their children, and make plans for the future in their native land.

Let us get down to work.

Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin: Mr President,

Since 2022, on your instruction, active work has been carried out to rebuild and develop our new regions. A socioeconomic development programme to 2030 covering a wide range of issues of the new regions’ development has been approved. From 2024, a state programme for rebuilding housing and infrastructure has been implemented within its framework. In addition, the working group approved the special housing, energy, and housing and utilities programmes until 2030, prepared by federal agencies.

Sponsor regions and state companies which have also approved action plans until 2030 inclusive are taking an active part in rebuilding the new regions. Today, this is our country’s largest infrastructure project.

We are not only rebuilding housing and infrastructure, but also building and opening new high-level landmark facilities, including the FMBA multidisciplinary medical centre in Mariupol, a perinatal centre in Donetsk, and a branch of the Defence Ministry’s Nakhimov Naval School in Melitopol. The first phase of construction of the year-round Mayak youth educational centre in the Zaporozhye Region has been completed.

In accordance with your instruction, a multidisciplinary paediatric centre is being built in Melitopol. The construction pace is even faster than planned. Much of the work on rebuilding Mariupol has been completed. We are working in the Severodonetsk agglomeration as well.

Notably, the socioeconomic development programme is a living tool. We see that the population of the Severodonetsk agglomeration is growing, and an additional volume of work appears in the newly liberated cities and towns. We are about to begin working in northern Donetsk. More people are coming to Lisichansk, and now we are speeding up work to rebuild the city.

The programme is planned to provide a comprehensive approach which prioritises the people’s needs and requests. In 2025, national projects became an important development tool. It is necessary to ensure the participation of Donbass and Novorossiya in all activities under national projects and achieve, by 2030, the national project metrics that are not below the average Russian level. This is a task for regional authorities and federal agencies, which we are addressing together and keep under special control.

At the Senezh Management Lab, the Presidential Executive Office, jointly with the Government, heads of the regions and regional teams, examined in depth the new regions’ involvement in national projects, including the Infrastructure for Life national project.

The Infrastructure for Life national project includes the construction of housing, utilities, roads, and bridges, as well as the renovation of public transport and building of social infrastructure facilities. Under this national project, together with the regions, we have identified 98 core communities whose development infrastructure will be under special control.

In accordance with your instructions, Mr President, the quality of life in these core communities must increase by at least 30 percent by 2030. The regions are currently finalising their plans for achieving this, and in some cases, implementation is already underway.

Let me share some figures on where we stand with the socioeconomic development programme.

Restoring housing has been our primary task since 2022. Today, we have restored 6,560 blocks of flats, or over 20 million square metres, mainly the housing that had been damaged. A critical issue has been individual housing restoration. In these cases, owners are paid compensation, and these payments are regularly adjusted. So far, 41,000 residents have been reimbursed for lost or damaged housing.

For the first time in the post-Soviet period, we are implementing an overhaul programme for blocks of flats in the Donbass and Novorossiya regions. Until now, there has been no such programme. There were no fees for the overhaul, and much of the housing stock was dilapidated. For the first time we have approved a separate programme for elevator replacement; we are inspecting substandard housing and launching a programme to relocate residents from dilapidated housing.

A key area is investment-driven housing construction. Our goal here is ambitious: we want to reach the national average for new commissioned housing by 2030. We are taking a comprehensive approach. First, we develop urban planning documentation, with fifteen master plans already drafted and endorsed. Another 75 are in the pipeline through 2030.

We are also developing master plans for coastal areas considering both tourism and housing development. To support this, we have taken concrete steps to expand urban development potential. To this end, a land bank has already been formed for housing construction. It currently includes 619 land plots with a combined development potential of over 20 million square metres. We have also launched a housing construction insurance programme to cover war-related risks.

In line with your decision, we have launched preferential mortgage, which is very popular, and this year, together with the Ministry of Finance, we have already increased the limits under this programme.

In close connection with rebuilding the housing, a programme is being implemented to rebuild and upgrade the housing and utility sector. In some settlements, the wear and tear of pipelines reached 80 percent. As of today, we have restored and upgraded 4,130 facilities, over 1,300 km of public utilities. We have also developed modern, integrated heat and water supply schemes across the regions, including in major cities like Severodonetsk, Mariupol, Melitopol, and Genichesk.

We have been pursuing a soft policy of gradually aligning housing and utility tariffs with those in the neighbouring regions by 2030. We have launched social support measures to help people with utility payments, working closely with the social services bloc.

Let me elaborate on road construction. Comprehensive plans for the development of road infrastructure until 2030 have been finalised and signed by head of each region personally, specifying roads to be repaired or built in a particular year. The targets set in your executive orders for bringing the road network to standard will be fully met. In fact, we are ahead of schedule on regional and intermunicipal roads.

Another pressing issue is the condition of roads within cities and towns. The government has decided to significantly increase the funding of works for street and road networks. Regional teams are ramping up the volume of these works every year, but reaching this target will be a challenge. The condition of many inner-city roads is rather poor.

Let me note that we have resurfaced 348 km of the new route, the Azov Ring, in the new territories. This was the first stage of the work.

Now we are widening the busiest sections to four lanes. From the Rostov Region to Mariupol, a 50-km section has already been expanded. We’ve also begun constructing a bypass around Mariupol, as all traffic previously passed directly through the city centre.

In the social sector, we have made progress as well. Today, 2.5 million people are receiving social and pension payments. We have restored or built around 300 healthcare facilities and more than 1,700 educational institutions, including universities, schools, and kindergartens, along with about 500 cultural, sports, and social service facilities. Together with the single customer, we have developed sectoral programmes for the restoration of facilities in education, healthcare, culture, sports, and other socially important areas until 2030. These programmes have been reviewed and adjusted, with funding provided for in the budget. The relevant ministries visited the region, approved their plans, and worked on them closely with Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. A total of 2,300 facilities. We have a clear vision of what we need to do.

The development of the regions is impossible without restarting the economy. The influx of investment and growth of business activity is promoted by the free economic zone. The number of participants is growing and currently stands at 365. The volume of investments exceeds 257 billion. The number of employees that will be involved is over 100,000. We actively work with the Territorial Development Fund together with the regions. The pace picks up monthly.

Within the framework of the recent St Petersburg Economic Forum we held the first round-table discussion on attracting investments to our regions. Notably, investors are showing great interest, including even foreign ones. There are official applications from foreign investors for participation in work on new territories.

Offering comfortable investment conditions, supporting projects, paying attention to the problems and concerns of investors should become a priority for the regional teams in their work with the new regions.

There are good examples. For instance, the Karansky Quarry for the production of building materials. In 2022, our Russian investor entered, made the enterprise a perfectly running operation. It keeps working and develops every year.

In agriculture, it’s not only agricultural facilities that are being restored; for example, in the Lugansk People’s Republic, using the support measures from the Ministry of Agriculture, new compound feed plants and new farms have been built. That is, we see that work is underway in each region.

We discuss programmes for the development of tourism with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko. There is a large project for essentially building a new tourist city in the Zaporozhye Region. Tourism in general is a sphere with a huge potential.

By the way, this year, Mr President, I can say (you visited the beach in Mariupol, which we have completely rebuilt), this year there are no vacancies at all, and tourists went to Mariupol for vacations from all over the country. We see this area as very promising.

The leadership of the regions needs to personally guide important projects and lead investors, as they say, by the hand. This is a priority for the near future.

Mr President, after your instruction, operations in the reunited regions were launched, along with Promsvyazbank, which worked with us from day one, by such major banks as Sberbank and VTB; 600 bank branches have opened, 4,100 ATMs have been installed, and almost five million bank cards have been issued. The lending portfolio is over 145 billion. I would like to note the dynamics for the first six months – the growth amounts to 50 percent. However, in order to reach the national average figures, we need to scale up massively the volume of lending and investment on this territory.

Together with the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr) and Roskadastr public non-profit company, a large-scale effort was organised to register all real estate objects. We keep a total inventory as an experiment. This project covers over five million objects. To date, 3.5 million objects have already been registered. Ultimately, this work will allow people to properly document their housing and land plots, develop the economy, attract investors, take out loans, and increase tax revenue.

The measures being taken have already led to an increase in tax revenue. The total tax revenue volume for 2024 exceeded 350 billion rubles, adding 70 percent on 2023. In 2025, tax revenues continue to grow, with extensive system-wide work underway. At the same time, regional budget revenues doubled last year, and this will allow us to direct extra resources to additional development according to their respective programmes. This is the result of economic growth, rehabilitation of housing and infrastructure in the regions. The new regions ensure additional demand for products for enterprises across Russia and promote their development.

Mr President, I want to thank you very much for the attention you pay to the continuous development of the new regions. We report to you on a regular basis, all decisions are being made as quickly as possible. If it were not for this system, we would have not been able to achieve these results.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Prime Minister, all supervising ministers, deputy prime ministers, separately the Presidential Executive Office (we work as one team), heads of the new regions and their teams, and all participants of this project, including federal agencies, sponsor regions, and state companies.

Many thanks to the State Duma and the Federation Council. More than 200 laws and amendments have been passed to integrate the new regions.

On a separate note, I would like to thank our colleagues from the Federal Security Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Defence Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Emergencies Ministry, and the National Guard, who address security issues and ensure compliance with law and order. Without that, it would be difficult to organise peaceful life, so we are very grateful to them.

The challenges we face are large-scale and complex. We have an understanding of how to solve them. Consistent work to achieve maximum integration of the new regions has been organised, even though much remains to be done. I am sure we will fulfil all the instructions.

I suggest moving to the ceremony for launching the new facilities. We did not make any specific preparations. We have a new facility opened every week, so here we have the ones that were ready in the past week. Please take a look, and I suggest inaugurating them.

Thank you.

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