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Vladimir Putin: Let us continue our work and specifically look at the problems of Ingushetia. First of all, I would like to congratulate our distinguished colleague, Murat Zyazikov. With the elections behind us, the whole republic, under your leadership and with our support, must move on to address the challenging and important tasks of development.

The republic has many problems, but they can be solved by uniting and consolidating all of society. Knowing you as an experienced man, I would still like to stress that you are the President not only of those who voted for you, but of all the residents of Ingushetia. All of us – myself and the Government of the Russian Federation – hope and are sure that you will manage to unite everyone, leave the electoral problems behind you, build on the positive achievements of the previous leadership and involve it in addressing the current tasks, the transfer of power in the broadest sense of the word.

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However, there are more problems in Ingushetia than meet the eye. So, some hard and extensive work lies ahead. Let’s face it. As a result of some decisions taken in the previous years and the creation of an offshore zone, the republic has enjoyed very sheltered conditions, but it failed to make the best of even such sheltered conditions.

From our information, and it is accurate, Ingushetia has the highest unemployment rate among all the Russian regions. Only 22% of the population is employed in production and services. Ingushetia is a heavily subsidised region of the Russian Federation, with 84% of its budget provided by the federal centre. This is a kind of situation that cannot be tolerated by the Federation nor the republic itself. The people of Ingushetia are industrious and talented. It is our common task to organise everything in such a way as to enable them to work and display their best qualities.

Ingushetia is heavily burdened with the problems of migration. Some of these problems are connected with migrants from North Ossetia and the Chechen Republic. We hope to be able to solve this problem together with the neighbours; if not tomorrow, then certainly in the foreseeable future. We should spare people the humiliation of living in camps and makeshift dwellings. I have made a point of inviting some high officials: Deputy Ministers of the Economy and Finances and the head of the Migration Service. I would like to give you the floor and hear what you think about the situation in the republic today. We will work together to determine what is to be done in order to offer you our robust support.