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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Our agenda today includes a set of matters related to ensuring Russia’s energy security. This topic is extremely important and pressing.

For our country, energy – and this, as a matter of fact, includes the electricity industry, as well as oil, gas and coal production – is of particular, strategic importance. Today, unique reserves of all the key energy sources enable us to fully meet our domestic energy needs, while the impressive exports, including to countries of the European Union, the Asia Pacific region, and the CIS, bring to Russia not only tangible revenue but also enable it to remain one of the main guarantors of global energy security.

I would like to point out that recently, we have done a lot to strengthen the domestic energy sector. The Energy Strategy of Russia and a number of large-scale state programmes aimed at developing the fuel and energy sector and enhancing energy efficiency of the entire Russian economy have been approved and come into effect.

Let me also draw your attention to the fact that we should increase the support for Russian energy companies operating abroad, because – and we know this all too well – the opportunities for multilateral and global energy cooperation have often been used lately as tools of containment rather than development. In this connection, we should step up our work at international energy organisations as well as use the potential of international associations with the participation of the Russian Federation to cut short these threats.

As I have already said, attempts to impose unfair competition are having a negative effect on the long-term development of the fuel and energy sector. These include bans on the delivery of modern hydrocarbon exploration and production technology and equipment, as well as direct political pressure put on the countries that import Russian hydrocarbons.

We must assess the current and potential challenges to the Russian energy sector objectively and comprehensively so as to promptly plan countermeasures to these threats.

The updated Energy Security Strategy of Russia is designed to address these challenges. We will discuss it today. After we adopt this doctrine, we will need to adjust our strategic planning documents to its new provisions.

The fuel and energy sector and the national infrastructure as a whole need top-level security as well as the mobilisation and permanent readiness of all the agencies concerned, especially in the autumn and winter period, as we know well.

We must seriously enhance the protection of fuel and energy facilities from terrorist attacks, accidents and other potential threats. This must be done above all through the quality training of personnel, strict compliance with all the security requirements and every technological and technical detail disregarding which can result in negative developments, through improvements in the security systems as well as regular exercises and drills.

And lastly, we must work consistently to rid the energy sector of corruption, all kinds of grey schemes and criminal threats.

I would like representatives from regulatory and law enforcement agencies to share with us their proposals on stepping up work in these areas.

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