He came back today from a five-day tour of China and Tajikistan. The presidential sojourn in Dushanbe, Tajik capital, brought, among other instruments, an agreement for a Russian military base to be established in Tajikistan. The Chinese visit settled bilateral frontier issues.
The President attended a summit of the Central Asian Cooperation Organisation, which Russia joined during the event.
President Putin thanked the federal Cabinet for his well-prepared visits. "The government took up a major part of the job to prepare the visits. Together, we hit the targets we had posed," he said while in conference with government members. "It took us long to prepare the visits and the documents to be signed," he added.
The Cabinet agrees with parliament as it called to cut general government expenditures next year, and increase national defence and interbudgetary relations allocations, Alexei Kudrin, Finance Minister, said to the conferees. Russian regions will be entitled to allocations as assistance for upcoming wage rises and a shift to monetary grants from welfare privileges in kind, he explained.
The Defence Ministry is thinking what missions to assign the "Admiral Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier next year, announced Sergei Ivanov, Defence Minister. The ship took part in North Atlantic naval games, and is due back to Severomorsk, October 21, he said. As soon as it returns, the minister intends to address the federal President as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, and report related blueprints in greater detail.
The North Atlantic exercise brought together the Russian, US and French navies. An active stage is over now, and warships and submarines are back to base.
France's Defence Minister and the US Secretary of Defence highly appreciate thegames. With a close schedule, naval aviation pilots increased their three-month flying time several-fold within a few days, added the minister.
Russian ships are joining NATO naval forces to patrol the East Mediterranean together, he added.
Two vessels of the Black Sea squadron will appear in the East Mediterranean within a few days on a programme to thwart proliferation of mass destruction weapons and components. The arrangement follows understandings made by the Russian and US Presidents, said Sergei Ivanov.
