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The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister – Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, deputy prime ministers Viktoria Abramchenko, Tatyana Golikova, Alexander Novak, Alexei Overchuk, Marat Khusnullin and Dmitry Chernyshenko, Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Presidential Aide – Head of the Presidential Control Directorate Dmitry Shalkov, Minister for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Natural Disaster Relief Alexander Kurenkov, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov, Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev and Director General of State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev were also invited to attend the meeting.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

Our agenda today will be focused on ensuring Russia’s resource independence when it comes to priority types of minerals for various industries. We have many reports; we will hear from Ms Abramchenko, Mr Kozlov, Mr Manturov, and Mr Likhachev, but I would like to start by asking the Emergencies Minister to report on the effort to help the people affected by the collapse of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam.

Mr Kurenkov, please.

Minister for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Natural Disaster Relief Alexander Kurenkov: Mr President,

As many as 23 communities in the Kherson Region were flooded following the collapse of the dam at the Kakhovskaya HPP. More than 23,000 residential buildings and 152 socially significant administrative and infrastructure facilities ended up in the flood area. The Nizhnedneprovsky National Park and 12 cemeteries have been flooded as well.

The Government Commission on Emergencies classified the current crisis as a federal-level emergency; this warranted a federal-level response. A response force has been sent to the disaster zone which includes Emergencies Ministry rescue teams, Defence Ministry service personnel, specialists from federal agencies and authorities of the Kherson Region.

As of today, the combined force of the unified state system for emergency prevention and response includes more than 1,500 people and 350 pieces of equipment, including 91 specialists in decontamination of chemical and biological agents who are treating and sanitising socially significant facilities, blocks of flats and cemeteries.

Thanks to the joint work of the response force, over 2,000 people were rescued, including 209 children, 41 bodies were recovered, and 121 people were hospitalised. More than 8,000 people were promptly evacuated from flooded areas, including 583 children and 291 mobility-impaired people. Currently, 1,935 people are staying at 21 temporary accommodation centres. They are being provided with comprehensive assistance, food and essentials. Others went to stay with relatives or friends.

Temporary accommodation centres available in the Kherson Region have enough capacity to accommodate about 3,500 more people, if need be.

The response centres have arranged for the delivery of the necessary machinery and equipment to the Kherson Region, from the state material reserve and the Emergencies Ministry reserve, to support rescue operations and meet the needs of the affected population.

In addition, the regional authorities have provided more than 240 tonnes of food and other necessities to support the population in the temporary accommodation centres. Together with other Russian regions and public organisations, they have provided 400 tonnes of bottled water.

We continue to provide assistance and promptly respond to every request from the Kherson Region.

Mr President,

An ad-hoc government commission is in charge of overall coordination of the interdepartmental force’s operations. An operational headquarters is operating in the disaster area under the supervision of the Emergencies Ministry.

As the water recedes, they are removing the debris and treating the area with special substances, removing garbage and disposing of animal and bird carcasses. Defence Ministry and Rospotrebnadzor units are conducting biological and chemical analyses of the environment. The Emergencies Ministry is providing methodological assistance to the Government of the Kherson Region on setting up evaluation commissions, drafting supporting documents and arranging payments to the affected population. Currently, these payments are being made from the regional budget. The disaster relief effort in the Kherson Region continues.

This concludes my report. Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Do you need any assistance in addition to the measures that are currently being carried out by your Ministry, other agencies and the local authorities?

Alexander Kurenkov: Mr President, new problems come up literally every day. We ask the commission for the help we need and work with them.

Vladimir Putin: Ok.

Mr Khusnullin, the Government recently decided to allocate part of the budget of the industry-specific programmes as funding for the new constituent entities. How much money has been provided as of now?

(Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported that 16 primary federal executive bodies are working on state programmes for the new constituent entities. As of today, 73 percent of the allocated amount has been transferred to the new regions, with 27 percent still being processed. However, the regions have not yet received the entire amount. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the work continues, and very soon, the funds are expected to arrive in the new regions that are eagerly waiting for them. The President asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to analyse this area of work with respect to industry-specific programmes for the new regions, issue instructions to develop respective reports by June 30 and forward these reports to him.)

Vladimir Putin: Mr Savelyev, recently, we have been paying much attention to digitalisation, including digitalisation on transport. There are many areas of work. Tell me about the progress.

Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev: Mr President, colleagues.

Under the unprecedented pressure of sanctions against our country, the Ministry of Transport is taking accelerated measures to complete the transport industry’s shift to Russian digital solutions, including by employing industrial competence centres to replace foreign software. This work was organised by the Prime Minister and gave a boost to developing digital technology for transport. We have been paying particular attention to improving the competitiveness and appeal of passenger and cargo transportation services. We are pursuing digitalisation across all transport sectors. I will start with motor transport.

The high costs and time-consuming processing of transport documents encouraged the Ministry of Transport to introduce an electronic document management system. As per your instruction, we adopted two federal laws and 10 bylaws to streamline the electronic shipping document system.

The National Database of Electronic Shipping Documents was launched on September 1, 2022. This multi-industry project involved the Federal Taxation Service, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media and the Interior Ministry. At this point, the system issues six types of shipping documents in electronic form and will allow us to eliminate around 5 billion hard copies per year.

The Platon project. The Platon toll payment system [for lorries weighing more than 12 tonnes and using federal roads], implemented back in 2015, is in operation. Since its launch, more than 1.7 million vehicles weighing over 12 tonnes have been registered in the system, and more than 200 billion rubles have been transferred to the road fund. In 2022 alone, the funds were spent to repair 1,100 km of motorways across the country.

Now, the ERA-GLONASS project. In 2023, we integrated this national automated information system with the 112 system of the Emergencies Ministry in 85 regions and set up information exchange. More than 9 million vehicles are equipped with ERA-GLONASS devices. Last year alone, the number of emergency calls that were processed promptly enough for emergency services to arrive within the “golden hour” exceeded 12 million, or 40 percent more than in 2021. This factor directly affects road safety and accident survival rates.

To be continued.