it was. his question time for president putin is he faces more than fifteen hundred journalists from around the globe in his annual media q. and a session. hello there a very warm welcome you're watching r.t. international now twice a year the russian president holds a marathon q. and a sessions one is a public phone him but today it is the turn of more than fifteen hundred journalists from all over the globe to quiz vladimir putin more mr putin is due to start the conference any minute now but before he does i think we can quickly yet squeeze a word in with more gas the f. he's down there for instance and for moscow good afternoon it is about to start

isn't it any minute now but just quickly run three what's expected to come up this year. well this year's press conference is a huge one allegedly according to latest numbers one thousand six hundred journalists have showed up this is you know this is this is the biggest by far press conference and the thirteenth in a row holding these since two thousand and one he took a break for four years when he was prime minister but now he's he's resumed these sessions and generally they're somewhat relaxed they're somewhat you know they're official but at the same time slightly unofficial and journalists cannot see the most candid things and generally the themes are conflicts taxes domestic reforms terrorism as well as corruption and russia and will probably be hearing many of the same questions this year as well putin traditionally spends the day and

night before these press conferences you know preparing getting ready to answer all these questions and the longest this is going on is four hours forty minutes back in two thousand and eight i mean let's not hold out for this year's to be longer than that but but you can never tell with vladimir putin and this year they'll be especially pressing questions as syria as the situation in ukraine the worsening relations with kiev there's also the lympics that this qualification of so many russian athletes as well as you know an unknown future for them also and this is the big one that timea putin's announcement that he'll be running for president the russian federation again next year many many questions that are going to be asked and there are journalists from all over the world well mostly regional journalists russian journalists they're also journalists from the biggest media outlets in the

world c.n.n. all the big american top dogs as well as british european asian. various media outlets so you know there's a lot to look forward to this year. ok thanks more i was just looking at some live pictures while you were talking to a huge death which mr putin is a jew to sit behind any minute now to face those sixteen hundred journalists so i'm sure we'll come back she throughout the day but the meantime thanks. and if so you know that press conference starts we will go straight to be for that some other news because the leaders of muslim nations are calling on the international community to recognize east jerusalem as the palestinian capital the organization of islamic cooperation met in response to the u.s. presence heavily criticized move to recognize the city as israel's capital. because of its great quires against the historical and permanent rights of your

people in jerusalem important i want to point out to ignore some of the distortions at. the united states the solution to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel is a dangerous one it will threaten security and stability and frustrates efforts to resume the peace process the president is committed to this peace process as committed as he has ever been boy yet. every possible step must be taken to prevent the implementation of this illegal action by the u.s. administration however there is one question that sticks out what factors are moments made it possible for the u.s. president to take such an outrageous act that type of rhetoric that we heard has prevented peace in the past and it's not necessarily surprising to us. and explains now how recognizing jerusalem as israel's capital has affected donald trump's global reputation. how much time do you think donald trump spend considering

his move to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel a decision which doesn't directly affect anyone apart from the u.s. and its ally but as tremors across the world in ways that washington perhaps didn't see coming the u.s. loses its starring role in the middle east peace process in one swoop the president wait farewell to any hope that the united states can broker a diplomatic solution in the holy land from now on america is unwarranted in the peace process. from now on american mediation between israel and palestine is out of the question this process is over. the united states has chosen to lose its competency. qualifies itself from play in a peaceful process the turkish president takes center stage in the regional

resistance to both the us and israel an extraordinary all muslim nations summit is hosted in istanbul by president who wasted no time in calling trump's decision no and void and branding israel a state of terror. are you back in this country israel. and terrorism is that what you are defending even more violence and a possible third intifada from nine hundred eighty seven to ninety one and two thousand to two thousand and five the region saw two deadly palestinian uprisings against the israeli occupation known as the into fargas now we could be on the verge of a third slaughter in the name of allah firstly how mass is called on the palestinian people to face the israeli occupation and adopt the blessid into fodder against that and the hateful and racist recognition of jerusalem into america river. says

its decision the palestinian people were involved in a continuous battle and into fodder against the israeli occupation and we are calling for it to be escalated in the west bank occupied jerusalem and the gaza strip against the occupation is a. little over a week since trump announced his decision and the tide has turned to a tsunami of potential natural disaster no one was ready for i do think we will see more of what we've been seeing so far and whether we're with the rock throwing and demonstrations and unfortunately something people being killed whether this results in a day another what they call third intifada i don't think we have any way of knowing if there's anything that may happen it's it's somewhat counter intuitive i think it will be taken by most of the regional countries and also by the europeans as indication that they can't trust the united states they don't trust american leadership and it way in the in the guise of reasserting american leadership i

think mr trump has actually made us more irrelevant to developments in the region and in some ways has lessened american influence in the region well despite international backlash over trump decision the u.s. secretary of state says it could take years for any concrete actions to follow the american embassy to israel can stay in tel aviv until the end of trump's presidency however the tensions in the region have been escalating quickly with the sides resorting to violence israeli forces say that overnight they intercepted two rockets fired from gaza meanwhile clashes in the contested city as well as in the west bank have been raging for a week. ok well at that press conference and a press conference putin with the world's press is just about to start let's go straight to it off with our economic performance. but look at what's new if i have the opportunity well i'm sure we'll have the time. oh you brought me another copy

thank you. so i've got some more info with me and i'll try to use your questions. to share is the most important. data with you and that's. a lot of relevance relevance with what will happen in the future. so i'll try. to get to your questions as soon as possible. so it's a press conference and i don't want to take too much of your precious time it's a great opportunity for you. to to your duty. to ask the questions that you feel. are really relevant for our people so let's start with the questions. usually the first person to ask

a question is. some veteran from the prime one paul but this year i would like to do differently and i would like to give birth to first question to this is the new generation of during all this and great moscow was one of the most active media organizations thank you very much i did not expect it. mr put didn't you. why are you running for president what is your goal what is your mission what do you want to accomplish for russia. and what is your vision of russia at the end of your term if you when think you. have painted the my vision of russia many times been massive vents where i spoke. and shared my vision and during

multiple interviews so it should be a forward leaning russia. it should be modern country we need to have a flexible child political system our economy should rely on high tech and labor productivity should increase multiple times i don't want to. talk about my election promises. that i should have and i will have just lying many other candidates have. almost finalized but it's not the right time to present it. here are the main things that we need to focus our attention. and it's relevant both for the government and for our people. and we need to develop our infrastructure and health care education.

as i said high tech increasing labor productivity. and without doubt our ultimate goal should be to increase income. people. so if so that's in broad strokes but i'm sure we'll go back to these issues over and over again. life news. as to what you want to watch. mr president while we were waiting for your announcement for you to declare that they were other people. nominating themselves but their rating i think is within the margin of error a couple of percentage points why do you think in twenty years that you have been ruling we did not have an influential. opposition candidate

and. boring for you maybe to run without a worthy opponent. to. make it even stronger when there was a poster of from seven agendas pushing buy buy buy buy buy buy buy buy buy. some carrots some. carrots sorry i've got poor eyesight. everybody's afraid of me putting bob in this is taught to our this means. grandpa puton this is what little kids call you in a republic off that they're stuck on and i have a question about children and language should i ask a question right now or. let's do it right now well you know that our republic and many parts of russia had this issue

about language and didn't the ministry of education made this decision about minority language use so we would not have to know if we you me review this revisit this issue in a year or two or three. do you have any plans to consolidate different provinces. number one. doing this think that the national. relevant one. of that and what we're doing about other languages is to ensure one girl every child needs to have a level playing field so you just raise the question about tatarstan i really love the republic of tatarstan i have a lot of friends there but ours. don't only live in other star they also live in other it russian regions everyone should have a level playing field. so i think it's important to know your mother tongue.

their mother tongue of your net group. should also learn russian. russian you biggest universities that. training is done in the russian language so that children believe in the republic of type of stun should know the russian language really well to be able to study. russian universities the same applies to the chechen language to the. other languages. of different. groups in there it's. something that we really need to cherish than something that we need to support the. consulate they know. we have to admit that after a certain events. to the collapse of the soviet union in the one nine hundred

ninety s. . you know we have to me that many of the regions were formed and established. randomly and some of the regions. economically performed really poorly so if you call me wise it sometimes makes sense to consolidate regions. but. if you take tatarstan and other. republics within the majority again here's my signal we weren't going to impose anything on those regions because that would have a detrimental effect on the unity of russia each nation each ethnic group needs to find a form of. coexisting with the russian people that they find most appropriate so we don't ever have any national any state planned

consulate regions. and now back to your question. our position and we know opposition candidates there would be strong enough. well the simplest answer would be well should i train contenders for myself. but you know i've been thinking a lot about the fact that our political system just like our economic system should be. competitive and that is my goal but. i would like to have a balanced political system. competition is vital. but you. shouldn't. we don't have you know high profile opposition figures. and they don't.

they not can cannot compete with. those in power. you know russia is a specific very small very specific country. young people don't really remember what happened back in the one nine hundred ninety s. and in the early two thousand they can all really compare with what we have today we do have a lot of problems here today and we've come together to talk about problems you know we won't we won't. try to wear a new stinted glasses take our g.d.p. our g.d.p. has grown seventy five percent since the year two thousand industrial production has grown sixty percent. g.d.p. grew by seventy five percent industrial production by seventy percent.

manufacturing. has been growing really fast like sixty percent. real wages. that you can slow down due to the crisis. in the past three years but. since the year two thousand. real wages. by three point five times pension has grown by three point six times. mortality mortality rate cut by two point seven percent and. maternal maternal mortality decreased by four times and we're also reversed the demographic trend we do have some problems. nevertheless we managed to reverse that

trend. so we had to downward slopes but we will take additional measures and i will talk about it today i'm sure we will be able to go back to normal so life expectancy was sixty five point three right now it's almost seventy three. and we were living in a state of civil war. for a long period of time like six years. but ten years of a civil war. when eighteen year old boys armed trained and qualified were sent to the frontlines so what and now fast forward to. today when we have a strong army and did is down by three times. and our country's reserves have grown by thirty times. well that's an outcome that's an

achievement that's for the opposition and they shouldn't just arrange protests in the streets and talk about the anti people. people regime. they need to talk about. efforts to improve our lives so knew we could have lived better and. admits that people have the right to say that we could have lived better but. what about the platforms of opposition leaders take a look at them and i feel that there are a lot there's a lot of doubt. about their platforms that's the root of the problem we need they need to present the real agenda. no not an agenda based on buzz. and protests to prime sure we will have such an

agenda we will have an opposition figure sooner or later let's continue i have to. lead him on three kolesnik of he's been covering the president of the russian federation for eighteen years. not strictly speaking fifteen years but still. quite a lot. of committee something my question is very simple. mr putin. you are running. let me explain you can run on the your own behalf you can run on behalf of the movement or a political party. so briefly. whom do you belong to and. to continue this question people see that there are some disagreements among your staff who will be your companion manager could you please announce the person who run your campaign and it doesn't even matter to you.

that. well i will run on my own behalf but. i definitely hope that would be supported by some popular movements parties or any other groups that share my views and that's in indorse my views so i really rely on broad support from our people that's for my campaign. you know we talked about it yesterday we don't have a final decision for disagreements yeah we do have disputes so we do have disagreements but we have not finalized anything. it's a technical issue but it's an important one. warned to be represented by people who enjoyed the respect in who support the policies. that the government has been conducting over the past years.

which. could be. let's go to the right wing over there. now that's an afterthought. kaliningrad. mr putin. at your. press conferences and q. and a sessions a lot of people come to you with their problems including personal problems we all remember that girl from opportunity she was only admitted to the hospital after you into being there directly why do you think so many people think that you are the only recourse the only solution to their problems why do they think they have to appeal to the president directly and how much time will be necessary for you to resolve all the problems of all the russian people in this kind of the manual control mode and my second very brief question related specifically to kaliningrad

i'm sorry recently you were including grad and they made a decision about building a new road there. but there is another construction project period which is also highly important. the question of funds was resolved for the first truth but can the federal government also help us with this second construction project as well as. building the road from both thank you but. when i responded to the first question i said that's one of the government's priorities. for the next years to come. should be. if you can do it developing in infrastructure roads airports ports. so definitely. any construction. particularly in an

enclave like kaliningrad region is will be. a priority to us so the we need to finalised. it's been done we need to have that. we need to have a dish and all roads otherwise will not get the right road network that it deserves but i can tell you right now that the decision will be taking tomorrow we also need. the resources that we have at our disposal the requirements of other regions as i said we do have a list of priorities infrastructure health care education high tech. and increasing the income of our people but we need to get we need to find some sources for it. so it's no secret that over the past twelve months

we have. weekly meetings with x.p. with government officials trying to pinpoint those sources. income those drivers. and many experts agree that you know we've been. lucky and. you know that some of the sources that they've been. presenting will not yield any results so when we get down to hands on discussions really practical discussions. even experts realize that. there will be no yield or very little yield. really hard to find those new drivers for. new sources of income but it's certain that we will definitely work on those projects. the first question was

on the so-called manual control. well that's a myth i think it's exaggerate says. if you take russia's regions if you take. moscow the central authorities. been head of government for. four years in one thousand nine hundred nine and for years just recently. you cannot imagine. the workload of the government it's the toughest job. in the executive power i mean you cannot really interfere in any issue you know we sometimes don't have a clear idea of what is happening in russia's regions that's bad we need to have a big picture of what's happening everywhere but that's why we hold these press

conferences that's why we have those direct lines. of people criticize them people often say the from ality but that's not correct and that's not right it's the. channel feedback which people get it get a chance to reach out to the government and those tools of manual control definite needed to make it more systemic following every direct line i meet with governors of russian regions and i present them with a list of problems that the people have voiced so i don't feel that bad. that's just in addition to the overall systemic work that we've been conducting. so that. that if you think you the and now the newspaper. the fish will bullet in. mr putin so what is the source of economic growth of that mr gene the economy

minister and other ministers have been saying everyone's been saying that the russian economy has been recovering but what is this drivers of that growth is it just for mallett see. creative accounting or water or maybe we produce more tractors more computers so. right i'm just looking around the room if there are any other questions related to this maybe we could add a few questions to your question. the. sources of growth do we have other questions on the economy. we're. processing no this is too specific fish processing we'll talk about this later. so what is your question. i mean it might seem pretty moxy.