“New” Putin Has a Clear Vision of Russia’s Future Development – Kremlin

MOSCOW- President Vladimir Putin has a clear vision of Russia’s development in the future, Dmitry Peskov, the President’s spokesman said in a TV interview on Sunday.

The presidential election was held on March 18. According to the final vote count, the incumbent president who ran as a self-nominated candidate, won the elections with 76.69% of the vote.

“The new Putin is a mixture of the Putin, we know and we united around and Putin, who understands what we need in the future. His vision is much broader than that of a normal voter, that’s why he gets the support. People know that if Putin says where to go and how to go, he does deliver on his promises,” Peskov told the NTV channel, according to Itar Tass.

“Putin has repeatedly argued that he is not a populist,” Peskov said. He also noted that Russia’s domestic issues are priorities for the President.

 Earlier this week, in a special televised address following the announcement of final results by the Central Election Commission, Putin said that spectacular civic engagement and consolidation of Russians at the March 18 presidential election are crucially important and show readiness to work on a real breakthrough in the country’s development. He assured Russians that the authorities will act openly and discuss their key decisions with people.

The head of state stressed that “all the forthcoming decisions, even the most difficult ones, will be motivated by one thing only, the need to eliminate the backlogs that still exist in various spheres, to ensure the country’s dynamic development and a brand new quality of life for the people, as well as to address the historical challenges that we face today.”

“And the most important thing – in the end, all these decisions will be taken exclusively for the benefit of our country, our citizens, our children and future generations,” he noted.

Putin “remains absolutely calm” in the situation with the UK

On Russia-UK relations, Peskov said that President Putin “remains absolutely calm” in the situation with the deterioration of relations with the UK and is focusing on the country’s domestic issues.

“You see that President Putin remains absolutely calm, restraint, and, unlike his vis-a-vis on the island, he behaves correctly,” he told the NTV channel.

“For him [the situation on the international arena] is not a priority, the priority is the domestic problems that we have, and he deals with them in a daily, round-the-clock format,” Peskov noted.

According to Peskov, the UK accusations of “the Skripal case” are “unprecedented rudeness.”

“What is important here is that no one has ever dealt with the situation when they accuse a country of something they cannot even formulate, and they do not try to formulate it,” Peskov said.

He described the Skripal case as an “unprecedented” international affair, which “savors of thuggery.” Peskov noted that Russia’s concern now is how to cope with this provocation.

Skripal case

On March 4, Sergei Skripal, former Russian military intelligence colonel, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of a nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury. Skripal was earlier convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and exchanged for Russian intelligence officers.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union.

Russia rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations. Moscow stressed that there were no programs to develop such a substance either in the USSR or in Russia. Without providing any proofs to its accusations, London expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the country and announced other anti-Russian measures. Moscow took retaliatory steps, expelling a similar number of British diplomats from Russia, ordered the closure of the British Consulate in St. Petersburg and termination of the activities of the British Council in Russia.