“I’m confident that everything will work out for us. Most important is that all of you, practically all one thousand of you, have the drive, the daring and the readiness to achieve success.”

“In 2011, an unprecedented amount of funding was allocated towards the purchase and modernisation of equipment, arms, research and development in defence. In modern Russia, we have never set aside this kind of money before: 750 billion roubles in one year! <…>The government expects that this huge sum will be used efficiently in order to improve the performance of the organisations involved in the defence industry and state procurement.”

Mr Gryzlov told Mr Putin about the United Russia primaries taking place in Russia’s regions ahead of a parliamentary election in December. The two men agreed to set a United Russia congress for September 23-24.

The minister of transport reported to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on raising the riverboat Bulgaria and paying compensation to bereaved families. In addition, Mr Levitin briefed the prime minister on the Ministry of Transport’s proposals to improve river navigation safety and technical oversight.

“Russia generated over a trillion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2010. That's 4.3% more than in 2009, practically reaching pre-crisis levels. Power units with a capacity of 3.2 gigawatt were commissioned last year, the largest amount in the past ten years. But we are not going to stop here, and we will continue to move forward.”

The meeting focused on results for the first six months of 2011 in agriculture and harvesting. Mr Putin and Mrs Skrynnik highlighted the issue of financial support for various farming activities that are important for different regions’ economies, such as land reclamation, sheep farming and primary milk processing for small farms and fruit growers.