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Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare Anna Popova briefed the meeting on the current epidemiological situation in the country. Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko commented on the issue.

Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko reported the implementation of a federal project to improve the Volga River environment.

Minister of Labour and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov spoke about the creation of the Russian Social Fund. In turn, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov reported on the adjustment of insurance premium payment deadlines in 2022.

Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko delivered the main report on improvement of control and oversight activities and permitting.

Also taking part in the meeting were Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister – Plenipotentiary Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, deputy prime ministers Tatyana Golikova, Marat Khusnullin, Dmitry Chernyshenko, Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin, and Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

I recently met with [Deputy Prime Minister] Dmitry Grigorenko, who spoke about a new phase in reforming the control and supervision activity and improving permitting. Mr Mishustin and I agreed that Mr Grigorenko should talk about this at a larger meeting to update all of us once again, and all those concerned, of course – economic actors will also hear this once again and will have an idea of what the Government is planning to do.

But first, as our usual practice has been, we will discuss current issues that are of particular interest, and I would like to ask Ms Popova to start with the current epidemiological situation. I see that, unfortunately, cases of seasonal colds and flu are growing, by almost 30–35 percent per week.

Ms Popova, what is the situation today?

(Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare Anna Popova briefed the meeting on the current epidemiological situation in the country. Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko commented on the issue.

Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko reported the implementation of a federal project to improve the Volga River environment.

Minister of Labour and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov spoke about the creation of the Russian Social Fund. In turn, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov reported on the adjustment of insurance premium payment deadlines in 2022.

Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko delivered the main report on improvement of control and oversight activities and permitting.

Also taking part in the meeting were Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister – Plenipotentiary Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, deputy prime ministers Tatyana Golikova, Marat Khusnullin, Dmitry Chernyshenko, Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin, and Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov.)

Head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova: Good afternoon, Mr President, colleagues,

Mr President, you are certainly right; it is true that we have a tense epidemiological situation in the Russian Federation today. This is due to two processes: the first is the growing COVID incidence rate; the increase is small, but we have recorded it for the fourth week running after the previous decrease for two months; it remains around 10–11 percent every week but it is here and will continue to be here. The second situation is high growth rate of ARVI, a group of respiratory infections and flu. It is plus 30 to 35 percent from week to week. Over the last week and the week before, we recorded increases in both new cases and in hospitalised patients. So, the epidemiological situation with the flu and ARVI is a burden for our healthcare system.

I would like to note that since the start of November, the situation began to grow worse in many countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Our system of monitoring, of epidemiological oversight sounded the alarm earlier – we identified the first flu viruses in October. The prevailing virus in the Russian Federation is the H1N1 with the addition of 09, because this was a pandemic flu variant in 2009–2010. It appeared in those years for the first time and caused a serious pandemic, especially since at that time we had no vaccine, nor a specific medication or other treatment method. Today, six years after we recorded a high rate in the 2015–2016 season, it returned to Russia, and it prevails over other strains.

We identified it in October thanks to our monitoring and scientific research systems. We saw that it completely coincided with the vaccine strain. In other words, what was used to prepare our four Russian vaccines completely blocked this version of the flu virus. Furthermore, this flu virus remained sensitive to the medications produced in Russia against this particular flu virus.

(Ms Popova went on to report on the measures taken to protect public health. She talked about the anti-flu vaccination. All vaccines were developed in a timely manner. In the past three months, since September, almost 52 percent of the Russian population has been vaccinated. This is some 75.1 million people, which attests to the high efficiency of the vaccine.)

At the same time, I would like to mention that, like everywhere else in the world, we are recording high activity among viruses with non-influenza etiology. There is a big share of rhinoviruses – about 10 percent. The share of respiratory syncytial viruses is also 10 percent and of metapneumoviruses, 7 percent. Unfortunately, these viruses often cause pneumonia later. The increase in the overall figures for these is not yet typical for Russia, either. The picture is the same in the rest of the world. We have not seen such high levels of these viruses before.

This requires a special evaluation methodology and, most importantly, differential diagnosis. It is very important for us today to distinguish between COVID, flu and other viral infections, because the treatment is entirely different.

Considering that 90 percent of COVID cases have common ARVI symptoms, it was decided to use the same arrangement we used for COVID testing, to test patients for the flu.

I would like to say a few more words about COVID, which has not gone anywhere and, obviously, is not going anywhere.

In November and December, Russia ranked 106 in terms of COVID incidence rate. We are at the same level today. The incidence is actually quite low, or one-fifth of what it was in November 2021, but it still causes concern. Therefore, we continue to perform 250,000–300,000 tests per day. Russia remains among the top ten countries in terms of testing coverage.

The COVID-associated risks that we see are the risks of potential variability of the virus, the emergence of new variations in the coronavirus genome, which can cause the situation to worsen. We are monitoring the situation on your instructions, Mr President. For this purpose, a system of genomic surveillance of the virus has been established. More than 220,000 [genomes] have been uploaded to it, and more than 5,000 genomes are added weekly. That is, Russia has a nationwide coronavirus monitoring network. We see no high risks yet.

The strains that cause concern in Europe – the so-called BQ1 and BQ1.1 – are practically not found in the Russian Federation. Only isolated cases have been recorded, or less than 1 percent of the total number of tests, while in Spain it is 78 percent, France is almost 60, and Germany 16 percent, but we do not see a significant impact on the epidemiological situation in those countries. On the other hand, there are risks because Russian virologists have not yet proposed specific treatment for this genomic variation today.

(Anna Popova also spoke about the establishment of surveillance and epidemiological monitoring in the four new regions of Russia. The situation there is similar to that in the Russian Federation. In addition, Anna Popova pointed out that the upcoming New Year holidays would entail additional risks of the spread and higher incidence of acute viral infections and reported on measures to minimise the risk.)

And of course, an awareness raising campaign is an important effort to explain all the rules and precautions to the population. The rules are public knowledge, they are clear, but I believe it is highly important to remind people again.

Thank you, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Remember I asked you a few days ago if I should get a jab? You said I should. I am reporting that I got it yesterday.

Anna Popova: Thank you very much for that.

Vladimir Putin: I also advise all my colleagues to get it. Today I exercised in the morning as usual – everything was just fine, without any problems.

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Vladimir Putin: (Addressing Viktoria Abramchenko.) Ms Abramchenko, recently you have reported on the work done in your area, and in general mentioned what we are doing as part of our environmental protection plans. We also have big plans to clean up the Volga River basin. There are 60 million people living there, with 45 percent of industrial production and 50 percent of agricultural enterprises concentrated there, and there are quite big plans for it: how many treatment facilities and culverts we need to build there, along a large stretch of the river: more than 1,000 kilometres.

What is the current state of this work?

Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko: Mr President, colleagues,

It is true that the improvement of water bodies is one of our key areas as part of the Ecology national project.

Russia ranks second in the world in terms of freshwater reserves after Brazil. This is a key advantage of ours, which influences the development of agriculture, energy, shipping, industry, and, of course, is necessary to create a comfortable environment for our people to live in.

At the same time, water bodies are distributed unevenly across the territory of Russia, with nine water-stressed regions and 19 facing constant adverse water impacts. Most of the problems we need to address have to do with bodies of water where the anthropogenic toll is high.

As you said, Mr President, out of 2.5 million Russian rivers the Volga bears the heaviest toll. Over 60 million live along the banks of the Volga and its main tributaries, which is a third of Russia’s population. Indeed, 45 percent of our industrial capacity and 50 percent of agricultural enterprises use the Volga. In addition to this, the Volga basin accounts for almost half of the total volume of fresh water used for drinking and household needs. That is, the river suffers from heavy use, and yet 60 million people cannot live without clean Volga water. Therefore, our main task is to reduce the volume of untreated wastewater.

The main polluters of the Volga are housing and utility services, which is more than 83 percent; followed by industrial enterprises and agriculture.

When we began implementing the project the volume of polluted sewage water from housing and utility services enterprises amounted to more than three billion cubic metres per year. This is approximately 39 percent of the total volume of polluted water from such enterprises across all Russia.

We can only counter untreated wastewater by building purification facilities and using closed-cycle water systems at industrial sites.

In the three years of implementing this project, we have put into operation 74 treatment facilities in 13 Volga districts. As a result we have exceeded the project’s purification goals. More than 800 million cubic metres of wastewater that flows into the Volga has been filtered. By the end of the year, 35 percent of all effluents discharged by utilities will be cleaned properly.

To check the water quality, we use the monitoring points in the Roshydromet Hydrological Observation Network. There are 67 monitoring points on the Volga River. The water quality of our rivers and lakes fluctuates between conditionally clean, class 1, and extremely dirty, which is class 5.

According to Roshydomet, due to the measures taken under the federal project, the number of intake points with class 4, or dirty water, has decreased from 16 to 4 percent on the Volga.

The second area of our work is ensuring the sustainable functioning of the lower Volga water complex. This year, we opened 48 culverts to improve the water exchange in the lower reaches of the Volga, which is 30 percent above our plan. We have cleaned over 141 kilometres of water canals in the mass spawning grounds of the Volga’s eastern delta and have restored almost 77 kilometres of fish-pass canals. To sum up, since the start of the project, we have cleaned 997 kilometres of canals and restored water bodies on over 21,000 hectares. This will make it possible to ensure up to a 50 percent annual increase in fish in the ameliorated spawning grounds of the lower Volga.

Mr President, volunteers and eco-volunteers are making a big contribution to cleaning the shores and basins of water reservoirs. This year, about 1.3 million volunteers have participated in over 21,000 local projects in all regions of the Russian Federation. I would like to thank every participant in these environmental actions.

When working on water projects, we should also respond to the risks inherent in global climate change. Climate change is already reducing groundwater levels. This trend is being recorded all over the world and has affected our southern areas. Therefore, it is important not only to clean sewage and prevent the pollution of surface water bodies but also to protect subterranean waters. To do this, we need full systematised information on all drinking water sources – both surface water and groundwater.

Mr President, we have started working on a unified state digital registry of drinking water supply sources for the entire country. Rosnedra (Federal Agency for Subsoil Resources Management) has prepared a prototype of such information system. We are now loading the data of the federal executive government bodies and three pilot regions – the Tula Region, the Stavropol Territory and the Chechen Republic – into it.

At the same time, we are drafting amendments to legislation that will directly envisage the creation of such state information system.

The implementation of the Ecology national project will be completed in 2024. However, to reach the national development goals by 2030, it is necessary to continue taking environmental measures, including the improvement of water bodies.

Mr President, with your support, the Government has begun drafting an integrated federal project on the environmental improvement of Russia’s largest water arteries.

We are planning this effort within the basin districts and with consideration for regional peculiarities, and we are paying special attention to cross-border rivers. We are including the entire Volga basin in this project, which means an additional 14 Russian regions. It will also cover the Ural, Irtysh, Don, Terek and Amur rivers and the Baltic basin.

The start of the new federal project is scheduled for 2025. It will embrace more water bodies and improve the living standards of at least 80 million people.

This concludes my report. Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Ms Abramchenko, you said the length of the restored water bodies was 997 kilometres. And how many are needed? What is the length of the waterways that must be restored? What is 100 percent?

Viktoria Abramchenko: We have done almost half, Mr President.

The lower Volga is a region that was damaged when the Volga-Kama cascade was introduced. Hence, to ensure the functioning of the lower Volga and its ecosystem, to create a normal spawning process, in addition to navigation, we need to dredge and clean these canals – both fish pass canals and the main riverbeds.

Vladimir Putin: I think this is more than half, it’s a bit more.

Viktoria Abramchenko: As of today, it is 50 percent of what we need. The problem is silting. As watermen say, this is a permanent process, it’s like removing snow. It never ends.

Vladimir Putin: It is necessary to continue this work, given the importance of the Volga River to our country.

All right. Thank you very much.

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