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The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko, deputy prime ministers Viktoria Abramchenko, Yury Borisov, Tatyana Golikova, Alexander Novak, Marat Khusnullin and Dmitry Chernyshenko.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Mishustin knows that I asked him to organise this meeting following the election campaign to the State Duma of the eighth convocation.

You know its results. The parliament will comprise deputies from five parties that were supported by the citizens of our country during the elections. Four parties have confirmed their parliamentary status – these are United Russia, the Communist Party of Russia, A Just Russia – For Truth, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. For the first time since 1999, a fifth parliamentary party has entered the Duma – the New People party.

All parties had their election programmes, which they will be implementing, including by suggesting legislative initiatives. I ask you to work closely with all the parties and pay attention to their appeals and requests.

United Russia has confirmed its leadership with the constitutional majority. One of its main goals now is to implement its programme, which is rightfully called “the people’s programme” because it was formed on the basis of citizens’ suggestions.

Why I am speaking about this now is because it needs to be implemented through a working dialogue between the parliament and the Government. You also took part in the development of this programme, and I would like to thank you for this major work during the election campaign.

I would also like to highlight that the Constitutional amendments have clearly elevated the role of interaction between the parliament and the Government. Not only has the parliament obtained a bigger say in forming the Government, but interaction between the two essential branches of power, the executive and the legislative, has gained substantial momentum.

Overall, the contacts with the seventh State Duma were quite effective. Keeping up this business-like manner is essential. The time has come to carry out the programme of the party that I have mentioned. These provisions deal with almost all aspects of life: the economy, demographics, education, healthcare, science, and culture. Special attention is being paid to employment and supporting families with children, as well as defending our traditional values. I will not go over the entire list, since you are well aware of all these provisions.

I would just like to point out and emphasise once again that you have proactively contributed to drafting this programme, so it is now up to you to do everything to make sure that the whole programme is carried out, to the fullest possible extent, by working together with the parliament, all party factions represented in the parliament, and also the United Russia party.

It is essential that people feel that the country is moving forward, and we are successful in these efforts, while all the benchmarks from the campaign programmes of the United Russia party, as well as other parties fit into our national development goals. Only then can we make sure that Russian society in its entirety contributes to these efforts. You are aware of how important it is that people feel part of a joint undertaking and know that they are contributing to this process. We can achieve the best results only if we work together as a single team and, as I have already mentioned, move forward persistently and relentlessly.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are not starting out from scratch. On the contrary, much has already been done, including through the Government’s efforts, but we all understand that we need to do even more and be even more effective in order to fulfil all our plans.

I just met with the leaders on the United Russia list in the same online format and told them that I heard the “Hurray” battle cry in some headquarters after the announcement of the election results. Meanwhile, it is too early for us to celebrate, as though we have reached all our goals. We have not yet defeated the enemy; and who is our enemy? The poverty of a considerable part of our population, as well as the current problems in the healthcare system, education and infrastructure development. We have many problems we need to tackle. They are our number one enemy. In the meantime, our main goal is to improve the living standards of the people in our country.

I would like to ask you to motivate your teams in all branches – the Government, the ministries and departments – to perform the tasks facing us in a prompt, professional and efficient way.

I would like to thank you again for your work during the election campaign and, in general, for the election results. We realise that there are fundamental tasks and that people judge our progress in their implementation. However, the Government’s real, routine and current work is no less important, and you have done this work at a good, professional level despite the pandemic. All this worked for United Russia when preparing for its election campaign, and, of course, this translated into the final figures we saw when the election results were calculated.

So, thank you very much, and I would like to say again that I hope you will work just as enthusiastically and efficiently in the near and mid-term perspective. Thank you.

We will talk about this with a number of our colleagues in various formats. I have just heard – I did not listen in, I really didn’t – but I heard how intensively you discussed ways of resolving current problems. We discuss them every day and I was very pleased to note that this momentum, this feisty attitude does not disappear but, on the contrary, is obviously getting stronger. This is vital because the election campaign is over, and the formation of the supreme representative government body is a crucial stage in the country’s life but you must move on and this is what the work on the march should be like.

Thank you very much.