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The Vladimir Chaika Republican Perinatal Centre opens in Donetsk. Fitted out with high-tech equipment, this 140-bed medical facility has ten departments.

The restoration of the weightlifting school of Olympic reserve has been completed in Lugansk. Now it has conditions there for full-scale preparations for interregional and national competitions.

In addition, ten residential buildings with comprehensive landscaping of adjacent territory are being put into service in Mariupol. The building of the branch of the Volgograd Academy of the Russian Interior Ministry is about to be put into operation.

Deputy prime ministers Tatyana Golikova and Marat Khusnullin and Health Minister Mikhail Murashko took part in the ceremony. Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin and Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik spoke at the ceremony via videoconference.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, friends and colleagues,

We continue consistent work on restoring and developing Donbass and Novorossiya and their effective integration into Russia’s uniform socio-economic, administrative and educational space.

I will repeat that despite the difficult current situation, we are building and repairing housing, roads, social and energy facilities, infrastructure, health, educational, cultural and sports facilities, and developing agricultural and industrial production.

All regions of our country, federal departments and, of course, volunteers who deserve special thanks, are very helpful in this respect. The Government of Russia is performing a coordinating role.

I will remind you that by 2030 the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions should reach the national average level in living standards and socio-economic development. We launched a relevant comprehensive programme through 2030 and endorsed a state programme for restoring the new regions of the Federation for 2024–2026. They cover most diverse areas.

There are meaningful results – relevant or irrelevant – but the results are certainly there. The work on over 10,000 facilities was completed in 2022–2023 under contracts with federal customers alone. In addition, the patron regions restored over 7,000 facilities over the same period.

Today, we are making yet another step in the big and complicated work that is so much in demand in the new regions. We are opening healthcare, educational, housing and sports facilities in Donetsk, Mariupol and Lugansk.

The Republican Perinatal Centre in Donetsk is one of them. It has a designed capacity of 140 beds and 7,000 births per year. The centre has ten departments, including those for pregnancy failure, intensive care, aggressive medical therapy, labour and delivery department, and developmental care unit as well as a clinical diagnostic laboratory. The total area of this complex is over 28,000 square metres. This area makes it an important facility.

The centre was built in a record time and today it is the most modern medical institution of this kind in the region. It is fitted out with all necessary equipment. Its staff is more than 620 people, including 160 doctors and 290 nurses. Importantly, the centre has already been staffed by almost 70 percent.

All this is a tangible contribution to large-scale common efforts to support Russian families, increase the birthrate and create high public prestige for large families in our country.

I would certainly like to thank the builders and all specialists that took part in the implementation of this important social project.

The branch of the Volgograd Academy of the Russian Interior Ministry also opens in Mariupol, the Donetsk People’s Republic. Starting on September 1 of this year, about 400 cadets will begin to study there.

The opening of this educational institution is a big contribution to expanding educational opportunities in the region and to providing personnel for the territorial units of the Interior Ministry and other government structures.

A new housing district was also built in Mariupol. It includes ten residential buildings with a total area of over 65,000 square metres. Overall, they have about 600 flats.

Previously, they were in the category of unfinished construction. Now, after all work on their construction and landscaping, keys to new, modern flats will be given to the city residents that were left without a roof over their heads after the relevant events, due to neo-Nazi depredations.

A specialised weightlifting school of Olympic reserve for children and teenagers has been restored in Lugansk. Its building was also destroyed during hostilities.

The school has not just been restored. Its training facility and a specialised weightlifting room have been upgraded. Locker rooms and showers for athletes have been built. Now 20 people can train there simultaneously. Overall, hundreds of athletes and sports fans can attend it. The total area of the building is 315 square metres.

I must note that despite all difficulties that I described earlier about 50 sports schools continue working there. They include 41 sports schools and nine Olympic reserve schools.

I would like to thank again all those that are taking part in the programmes of developing and restoring Donbass and Novorossiya, and improving people’s life there. I would certainly like to wish them success in these noble efforts in the future as well.

Let us move to the planned event.

I am giving the floor to Marat Khusnullin. Go ahead, please.

Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin: Mr President,

In line with your instruction, the Government, together with the regions and the Presidential Executive Office, has launched active work to restore the infrastructure and implement measures for the regions’ socioeconomic development.

This involves 32 ministries, eight of our largest customers, companies, state-owned companies, and 82 patron regions, you named the numbers. In addition, the regions are restoring certain facilities at their own expense. In total, we have already restored 18,000 facilities, from small ones to as large as those [opening today], to those that today have an area of tens of thousands of metres.

In fact, on average, about 25–30 facilities are constructed or renovated in the four regions every day. Today we are opening several facilities that are ready as of today. This is housing. When we talk about ten apartment buildings, this is equal to a neighbourhood unit in Mariupol. It remained unfinished for many years, plus it was damaged during certain actions. We made the decision to restore it quickly, in less than a year. Today, there are about 600 flats: people are getting their keys. Over this time, that is, in less than 700 days, we have also restored more than 5,000 blocks of flats.

What other positive things do we have? The decision you have made on mortgage – that people will be able to get a mortgage loan at two percent rate, resulted today in a great demand for off-budget construction. We have a potential available for building eight million square metres of urban housing, and new construction sites are being added every month, where housing construction is being carried out using extra-budgetary funds.

Today, active efforts are being made to restore social infrastructure. Since the work started, over 2,000 social infrastructure facilities have been restored: kindergartens, schools, and universities, such as the Azov Technological University which you saw.

Today we are opening the Interior Ministry academy. In addition, a vocational construction college will open just in a couple of days in Severodonetsk. There are already 140 students there: people want to study and receive vocational training despite being very close to the line of engagement. This is a large college: it spans several thousand square metres, and will fully operate in a couple of days.

In the healthcare industry, we have built an impressive new facility in the shortest possible time in response to your personal instruction – with more than 1,000 builders, our integrated customer and the contractor working around the clock. After an enemy missile hit the local maternity hospital, there was no place for women to give birth. Today, we have a very decent facility, very beautiful and functional.

Mr President, in addition to this facility, 331 other medical centres have been built, restored or re-equipped since this programme was launched. Together with the Ministry of Healthcare, we have drawn up a three-year programme for the restoration of all facilities in each region, including children’s centres in Melitopol, on your instructions, and for the repair of existing ones. Now that the programme has been extended, we are planning a complete healthcare programme until 2030.

We are also putting together a major programme on higher education institutions with the Ministry of Education.

As for sports, today we are opening one sports facility. It is only a small local centre, but overall, we have more than a hundred put into operation, and we plan to build more.

A lot of work is underway to improve and renovate local parks. A number of facilities are being restored and news ones are being built there.

In addition to these important facilities, it should be noted that we are repairing and building integrated government service centres. More than 100 such centres are open to visitors, who apply for pensions, various documents and other services. More than 2.4 million citizens can receive their pensions and the necessary documents there today. We will open another government service centre in the Donetsk Region in the next few days.

In addition, we are very active in road construction. About 2,000 kilometres of roads were built last year, and this year, we plan to build at least as much. All the plans are ready; the weather is favourable, and we have started work. We are repairing a major motorway running along the Azov Sea coast, as well as city roads and roads connecting cities and towns.

Efforts are being made to revive the economy. Just the day before yesterday, the free economic zone crossed an important bar of 100 participants, that is, 100 resident companies that have announced total investment of 52 billion [rubles]. We see a lot of interest, and we have about twenty more applications to consider. Therefore, we also believe that this part of the economy will recover; many facilities are being repaired or built, and equipment is being delivered.

Mr President, thank you very much for your attention. We have taken on daunting tasks. We hope that we will succeed, working together in a ‘response centre’ mode. Once again, thank you very much.

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Vladimir Putin: I would like to thank everyone who was part of this work: building and restoring respective facilities and housing. I would like to hope that we will continue to work as effectively both in the near and far future. There is no doubt about that.

The only thing we need to achieve is that every single ruble invested out of these four-plus trillion rubles [the total amount of funding for the new regions’ socioeconomic development programme] works effectively for the benefit of the people who live in these regions. People deserve it. As I have already said at the beginning of our meeting, they showed incredible courage and heroism – I mean what they had to endure – and retained their desire to reunite with Russia. Therefore, for our part, we must do and will do everything that depends on us to ensure that these people’s expectations are met.

Once again, I would like to thank the builders and those who organised this work and wish them all the best.

Thank you.