Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his vision of the economy of the future and announced new mortgage relief measures in his speech to the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok this week.

According to the TASS news agency, Putin stressed that the economy of the future would be “built around people”, emphasising the importance of social infrastructure as well as industrial development.

“This logic is not only unfair, it does not work in the modern economy,” Putin said, referring to the practice of building industrial facilities without social amenities.

The president announced a retroactive increase in mortgage subsidies for large families in Far Eastern regions with low birth rates, effective July 1. The payment will be raised to 1 million roubles ($10,900 at current exchange rates).

“I propose that we solve this problem. Let’s keep the interest rate on mortgages in the Far East and the Arctic at 2 per cent a year,” Putin said.

On the other hand, Putin described the Far East as “a very important factor in strengthening Russia’s position in the world” and the country’s “flagship” in the new global economic reality: “The Far Eastern regions provide direct access to these growing and promising markets and allow us to overcome the barriers that some Western elites are trying to impose on the world”.

“The main business links, trade routes and the entire vector of development are increasingly oriented towards the East and the global South,” the Russian leader said.

Putin also called for consideration to be given to the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Far East and stressed the need to fully double track and electrify the Baikal-Amur main line railway.

Putin also underlined Russia’s readiness to carry out large-scale transport projects, saying: “We can build quickly, comprehensively and with high quality”.

In addition, Putin stated that his country was not pursuing a policy of ‘de-dollarisation’ and that Russia was not the party that abandoned dollar-denominated payments, saying: “We are not pursuing a policy of de-dollarisation. After all, we did not reject dollar-denominated agreements, they rejected the agreements and we had to look for other possibilities,” Putin said.

Putin added that the currency reflects a country’s economic power, saying that the more partners a country has, the more its currency will be in demand.

“After the Second World War, the US took advantage of this situation and made the dollar the world currency. Now the situation is changing,” Putin said, noting that the countries of the global South now account for more than 50 per cent of world GDP.

The Russian leader stressed the importance of ensuring resource sovereignty for the country’s uninterrupted supply of affordable fuel and raw materials. He pointed to the potential of the Far East to produce titanium, lithium, niobium, rare earth metals and other resources “necessary for the economy of the future”.

Putin also called for the speeding up of legislation needed to launch international priority development zones in the Far East.

Putin also spoke about the joint Russian-Chinese project to develop Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk region, which is due to start in 2025.

The president underlined Russia’s commitment to modern technologies by announcing plans to launch a civilian drone project in the Far East.

Vladimir Saldo, the governor of Kherson Oblast, which will be annexed to the Russian Federation by referendum in 2022, has said that the military school shot down in Poltava yesterday housed a training centre where NATO instructors were teaching.

Speaking to RIA Novosti at the Eastern Economic Forum, Saldo said: “Now they are under the guidance of NATO countries and they encourage sending mercenaries there. Training centres are needed to develop the region. There are still NATO instructors training Ukrainians who are caught on the streets and sent to training centres”.

Saldo said the centre had been destroyed in the attack.

According to the TASS news agency, the Russian military used two Iskander-M cruise missiles in the attack.

The Russian defence ministry has not officially commented on reports of the attack.

The death toll exceeds 50

On the other hand, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office announced that 51 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the rocket attack.

Zelensky made a statement on his Telegram channel yesterday: “The attack took place in the area where the educational institution and a neighbouring hospital are located. One of the buildings of the Institute of Communication was partially destroyed. People were trapped under the rubble. Many of them have been rescued,” he said.

The Ukrainian defence ministry said two ballistic missiles were used in the attack. The time interval between the alarm and the arrival of the missiles was so short that it caught people at the moment of evacuation to the shelter,’ the ministry said.

Last week, Russia launched three major rocket attacks on Ukraine. The attacks took place on 26, 27 and 29 August.

The shelling on 26 August was the largest of the war: 236 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were fired at the country’s territory, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Russia hits military school in Poltava region of Ukraine: 41 dead, nearly 600 injured

In an interview with Russia Today (RT) for the documentary ‘Bridges to the East’, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Turkey is ready to discuss the withdrawal of its troops from Syria, but so far no agreement has been reached on the specific parameters of this process.

“The Turks are ready for this, but so far there is no agreement on specific parameters. We are discussing the return of refugees, the necessary measures to suppress the terrorist threat, which would make the presence of Turkish troops unnecessary. All this is being worked on,” he said.

The minister explained that, according to the Syrian government, the normalisation of relations with Ankara requires ‘a clear definition of the procedure for the final withdrawal of Turkish troops from the Syrian Arab Republic’.

Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran to hold meeting on normalisation of relations between Ankara and Damascus

On the other hand, Lavrov said that Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran will hold another meeting in the near future to discuss the normalisation of relations between Ankara and Damascus.

“Last year, with great efforts, we managed to hold meetings with the participation of the foreign and defence ministries and intelligence services. We tried to discuss the conditions that could lead to the normalisation of relations between the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Turkey. Representatives of Syria, Turkey, Russia and Iran took part in these meetings, Lavrov said.

“Now we are preparing another meeting. I am confident that it will take place in the foreseeable future,” the minister added.

Lavrov also noted that Russia would like to see its partners in Damascus and Ankara normalise their relations.

“We want this, in particular, because the current leaders of Turkey and Syria had warm personal relations before 2010-2011, before the Arab Spring began. I think this will also play a positive role,” Lavrov said.

Referring to the situation in Syria, Lavrov pointed to the presence of American troops here and said: “This directly affects the situation in Syria. This is the reason for the situation east of the Euphrates,” Lavrov said.

‘The US is trying to create a semi-state in Tanf’

Recalling that the US has created a 55-kilometre zone around the Tanf settlement, Lavrov said that the Americans are not solving problems in the fight against terrorism in this region, but are trying to create a ‘semi-state’.

“There are oil and gas deposits and fertile agricultural land in this region. It is being ruthlessly exploited. The Americans and their henchmen are extracting oil, gas and grain from here and selling them. This money does not go into the Syrian budget, but is used to promote separatism and the creation of a semi-state,” he said.

‘YPG should remember what happened to Afghan leaders who trusted the US’

Commenting on relations with the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Lavrov said: “The Americans are using and playing the Kurds in their games. The Kurds must understand that their future lies in a united Syria. They should not hope that the Americans will help them, they should come to an agreement with the Syrian government, they should agree on their rights as a national minority”.

Lavrov continued: “There was a dialogue on this issue and we encouraged this dialogue. Then the Americans convinced the Kurds that it was better to increase tensions than to interact with the government. In our contacts with our Kurdish colleagues, we remind them of what happened to the Afghan leadership, which decided to rely not on its own people, not on national dialogue, but on US promises. The Americans abandoned them overnight. I hope that our Kurdish partners will take into account the historical experience of this country, which is close to Syria, and choose the path of national dialogue and agreement with Damascus on the conditions for living in a united Syrian state”.