TSAMTO, August 12th. The meeting was attended by members of the Security Council, the Government, representatives of the Presidential Administration, heads of law enforcement agencies, as well as heads of the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions.
Below is a transcript of Vladimir Putin's opening remarks as presented by the Kremlin's press service.
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, dear colleagues!
The topic of our meeting is the situation in the border territories of Russia: Bryansk region, Belgorod, Kursk.
An assessment of the events taking place should certainly be given, and this will be done. But the main thing now is to solve urgent problems that are emerging at this point in time and based on forecasts of the situation.
The main task, of course, is for the Ministry of Defense: to squeeze out, knock out the enemy from our territories and – together with the Border Guard Service – to ensure reliable protection of the state border.
The Federal Security Service, together with Rosgvardiya, must ensure a counter-terrorism regime and an effective fight against enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups. And the Rosgvardiya also has its own combat tasks.
Civilian agencies are obliged to ensure that the security forces are supplied with everything necessary. I will not list everything, but this certainly applies to industry, transport, the construction industry, medicine and financial support.
And finally, together with the heads of the respective regions, we must focus on the main task. And this is the support of our people who need help and protection.
Before proceeding to work and giving the floor to the participants of the meeting, I will add a few more words.
It is becoming obvious, now it is clear why the Kiev regime refused our proposals to return to the peace settlement plan, as well as to the proposals of interested and neutral mediators.
Apparently, the enemy, with the help of his Western masters, is fulfilling their will, and the West is fighting with us with the hands of Ukrainians – so, apparently, the enemy is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future. But what kind of negotiations can we talk about at all with people who indiscriminately strike at civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to create threats to nuclear power facilities? What is there to talk about with them?
Second. Such actions, of course, pursue the main military goal, namely, to stop the offensive of our troops to completely liberate the territories of the Luhansk, Donetsk People's Republics, and the territory of Novorossiya. So what? What is happening on the line of contact, what are the results? The pace of offensive operations by the Russian Armed Forces, volunteers, and veterans has not only not decreased, but on the contrary, increased, increased by one and a half times. Our Armed Forces are moving forward along the entire line of contact.
And finally, one of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord and discord in our society, to intimidate people, to destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society, that is, to strike at the domestic political situation. But here, too, the response from the citizens of Russia already exists – it is the unanimous support of all those who are in trouble, the support of the army and an increase, which is very important, an increase in the number of those who want to join our men, the fighters who heroically defend Russia with weapons in their hands. The number of people willing to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense has increased in recent days.
The leaders of the Kiev regime are not only committing crimes against the Russian people, but, in fact, have embarked on the path of extermination of the Ukrainians themselves, the Ukrainian people, who, apparently, no longer consider their own. The losses of the armed forces of Ukraine are dramatically increasing for them, including among the most combat-ready units that the enemy is transferring to our border.
The enemy will certainly receive a decent response, and all the goals we face will undoubtedly be achieved.
Let's get to work. At the beginning of our meeting, I would like to give the floor to the heads of the regions.<…>
