“Some 750 billion roubles has been allocated this year for the purchase and upgrading of arms and military hardware, as well as for defence-related R&D. This is one and a half times as much as last year. In 2012, we are planning to increase this amount to 880 billion roubles. Never before has the rearmament of Russia’s Army and Navy been financed so liberally.”

“People don’t care which level of government is responsible for this or that issue, so it needs to be addressed in any case by combining the efforts of all the levels of government and management. The main thing is that the task should be tackled and people should feel the result.”

“Millions of Russians see Sberbank as a symbol of reliability and stability, and there are, of course, good reasons for this trust, first among them being how consistently customer-orientated the bank is.”

“We run for elections and call our country’s citizens to make their verdict on how we worked previously and what they think about the programme for the nation’s future development – and the programme envisages the economy modernised to an extent, and growth guaranteed on a new basis, and new high-tech jobs.”

The prime minister praised the Krasnodar Territory for its record harvest and for an industrial growth rate above the national average. However, he also spoke about the need for Krasnodar authorities to meet outstanding wage arrears. Special attention was paid to the public mortgage pilot programme.