Meeting with Government members

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues.

I came here today to thank you for our joint work over the past years. We remember how it all began; I mean how your work in this team started. It started right on the eve of the unpleasant events for all of us, related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Just several weeks before it broke, the Government had been formed. After that, issues related to fighting the coronavirus started to arise. It was a very difficult test, I would even say a trial for Russia, for all of us, and for the entire world, to be honest.

I must say that together we came through this trial. It was necessary to mobilise all our healthcare resources, the entire social sphere, as well as industry and production of everything the country needed to fight the coronavirus; and, overall, let me say once again that we passed this trial with dignity.

A lot has been done by the Government to arrange the necessary work in the economy, too, because, in addition to organising specific production, decisions had to be made that impacted the economy in general: what must be closed and what not.

I remember it well how we were solving tasks, for example, of construction sites and road building: what must be closed, what must not, how it should be done, what should be done with the workforce, including creative teams and how to support them in the conditions when we had to restrict their work. There were a lot of issues, and, overall, the support measures for huge enterprises and entire economic sectors were timely and well-balanced. All of this yielded a generally satisfactory result both for the fight against the coronavirus and for the economy.

To be continued.