fact is that shape the military defense budget to phoenix to year. i do you get here early on and one point four trillion that's for procurement and one point four for maintenance so two point eight trillion rubles. it's two point eight percent of g.d.p. roughly. so given you two point eight figure. that's roughly. six billion u.s. dollars next year in u.s. dollar terms forty six billion. but because of that take the u.s. they signed the deal already and their seven hundred billion that's their military budget that's their military spending just compare forty six and seven hundred can we actually missions that afford

to have seven hundred billion. well forty six is might be big for us and you might have heard that those who don't want to feed their own army will feed someone else's army but old joke there are new jokes. there's a new one. but it might be known to some of you. former officers. and the sun comes to former officer bush and he asks his son so i used to have this knife this navy knife have you seen this navy knife but you know i just swapped it for a watch. with a friend of mine well i'll take a look give it to me well that's a good watch but tomorrow you know the gangsters would come here they would kill me they would kill your ma though you were. to rape your sister and you would come out

and say you know. twelve thirty. well we don't want a development like this so we will definitely focus on developing our navy and army we were to get ourselves dragged into an arms race and we would disrupt i suggest we take a combined approach there was a question about children and their future and their right wing and we have t.v. children t.v. the kids on the left. this is not the first year they are here at this press conference so let's go to the right wing first what's your question. give to the children or toll i would like to make a joke as well like you did three years ago we had a baby a gift to be. thanks god you

know thank god of course i'm kidding because in twenty fourteen at the press conference you supported the idea to set up a national web portal for gifted children in russia and. it is developing quite well and we all would send greetings to you seventy five regions of russia so. first when we need you now it's to competition to write essays about russia in the future we had seven categories and we received twenty five hundred that unique assets about the future of russia x. a month we have one hundred and fifteen winners and. the nineteenth we. give awards to the winners ok my question my question is you asked would you would you like to listen to those wonderful kids and hear what they think about the future of russia what do you see well. do you want to bring in children now it's

january nineteenth could you please come to the award giving ceremony in the federation council. we want these kids to tell you about their vision of the future of russia ok i'll try to do. thank you please note it down in my schedule thank you for your work and think your proposal now question from sylhet yeah my name is. this is a real we work together we represent. that. mr president how does the government support give to children and how do you plan supporting them in the future and does the government work together with prominent artists in this matter scientists and so on and so forth. and. what these kids can become in the future if you invest a lot in them this point and one more question we know that there is

a serious center that you helped set up it is a center for gifted children from all over russia. but there are kids who are equally gifted but they were unable to get into serious. is there anything you're doing for them. that's for talented kids to channel. which is gifted children. i've said it multiple times i believe that every child is gifted talented and that's the job of the parents the job of the tutus to a looked at potential. and again it's in the. statement you know cognitive science is right now doing such stuff. and we do have those specialists who are conducting

research like this into a cognitive feria you just mentioned syria. center for gifted children. and. visited the media center in saatchi which. the total size of four red square is so huge one so based in the media center that we would like to set. a. several of burra trees world class high tech lab or trees and i.t. . biology and genetics and cognitive science. and then it's my initiative. and that lab and computer science will look into new to me to work with gifted children to unlock their potential we all working on that

right now. so we'll definitely work on this. in terms of science. in terms of our practical work you know we're also developing the. camps for children in the south of russia where on all right we are establishing children's. parks the so-called kwan tory arms. which we are now conducting in the so-called olympiads special contest for children what kind of venue expected so we really want to hope that all those gifted children would stay here in russia would find a job here in russia so again serious center is a world class one and with the right near seats we will have a bora trees. next to it will have the technique parks so this will be the.

trio that will. help to be. implemented those ideas developed in syria as in practice. they will work on commercialising those ideas. and there's a special cause on retraining. teachers from schools. hope that we would have such hubs. in other regions of russia and this network is now emerging across russia. now what are the what's your question on pension age on rage of retirement we won't forget about the army mind you. will come to that promise. mr president you know.

people have been talking about increasing the retirement we all understand that it's just a matter of time when will you make this decision and how much will you raise the retirement age for men and women. but of peace sit down definitely raise a very sensitive very painful issue it's an important one to. be able to give the final decision because it's ready. but the way you put it. it is as if the decision has been made already well there are those in favor of creasing which raising the retirement age their argument but they said that. again the retirement age that we have today was set back in nineteen thirties.

and again life expectancy was roughly the same as the retirement age that they said that might be a paradox that was like this if you take european countries including belarus in kazakhstan and the same in ukraine they've taken that decision to raise the retirement age we are the only outlier. so what is the argument of those who are in favor of raising the retirement age they say that if we don't do this given the increase in life expectancy there will be more people more and more people who will have retired unless people who are able. able to work world might mean that we wouldn't be able to. pay enough attention well well that's not actually what actually happened we will continue to make payments hurts the income of retired so we'll be frozen i mean the growth will be

frozen and given the inflation very income would go down actually. though again those who are in favor say that we should increase the retirement age in the same way for women and men alike you know there are we do have we men who give birth at fifty five and that those who are against. raising the retirement age they say that we need to. transform our economy into the one that is based on high tech and innovations but you see it in the world but it was forgotten. what it means. now. is that you should be able to get the same result.

using one hundred people instead of one thousand staff members that we employed to . look at it and if we increase the retirement age what will we have to do with all those people war will happen to the labor markets where we are all those people go but there are other arguments and we just need to do a lot of calculations and again i'm giving you those argument those reasons not in not in an attempt to. dodge this question we just need to. think about every passable it spillover effect but again it won't applied to all those people who have retired already and number two it shouldn't be some shock therapy solution would be steep it shouldn't be a one time solution should be a gradual step by step sure. and again no final

decision has been taken as of today. there's another one important factor you can't take their decision behind the scenes for the love of the government it should be transparent decision but. we need to take into account the interests and the opinion of the people and also we need to debate that at the parliament. maybe take a few questions about sports sport is here and match t.v.'s here and there was something i can tell you sport. and he's alive in russia let's start with the match t v. but please keep it short. a match to be mr putin the art my question is related to sports the situation with

the are you all see and why don't we hear what is. your how do you plan to communicate with these organizations and this situation is extremely difficult what is the we out of this situation and. for me my colleagues mention it several times. it's quite obvious to us that it's a big. scandal that's being. exaggerated ahead of the upcoming election event that we are having next year i know about this i'm sure about this but again we have to be frank about it we are to blame ourselves indeed there have been some instances where legal substances were used have been other instances that were investigated.

in other countries as well birds you know there have been no such scandals in other countries so there is an attempt to politicize this issue there are other systemic events in. the police reports but if. the there are the so-called t o e's that would. extend exemptions. to the. athletes get competitive advantage based on those t o e's. so so athletes can take those substances are others are not allowed to so maybe those who take those substances. need to have. a separate sports event we need to have a level playing field we need to have a competitive field what about. what about our relations with.

other musicians well we need to work in a constructive way we need to defend the interests of our athletes including in courts. not sports courts but ordinary courts i know that many officials don't want that but we'll have to support our assets in civil courts to defend the rights and dignity of our athletes. and let's take this question now. we. know what is the star witness sees a goody goody. in twenty eleven he and his sister were indicted for illegal. substances and he. gave guarantees to athletes saying that they would never get caught and

then he attempted in that he was in a psychiatric. for a while so you you can. typical skies are friendly and then a miracle started to happen all of a sudden he becomes a witness. and. only one count was worked out of twelve. case was dropped and he returned and he was head of the director of this lab and. they investigated he's crime so why ski witness now in. criminal how can such a person suicidal. how was he appointed the director of the lab. well it's not

a simple question it's pretty strange i agree. to live in north america for a couple of years he came over to russia. well there's nothing strange about being appointed chief. and i think he's sr was convicted for eighteen months for selling illegal substances. what is really strange from a no i've been. part of intelligence service this he's been has been bringing that stuff from north america and canada but how has he been able to do that how was he able to do that over so many years what about the customs service so we do have some questions you know that's the mistake of those people the. agencies that the brought him over that appointed him you can't really

a point in those people people who have mental issues people who have tried to commit suicide. with money but it. so what. it was later than that what did the i.o.c. tell us. how did the prove their decision they say that he's an honest person but. he's also on the control of the f.b.i. he's protected by the f.b.i. . and that everything is was laid out in his diaries well that's. really ridiculous but how do you know he's an honest person but well he says openly that money is the main thing for him he's under the control of the o.b.i. if that's not a an advantage he works under the you know under the guidance of the

americans intelligence services he might be on substance who seems selfish you know they might be drugging him to say something what about the diaries. in did he do that how he did he do that well that's it these are the sri sri main. argumentation what about those scratches on those tubes when you did the. we don't know when so we really respect international sports organizations and the i.o.c. we have a lot of friends there and we need to stand that it's difficult for them they've been pressurised. they've been intimidated. that's how it is. but even if they have forced to do something you need to have some. some justification some grounds for the decision but so far they've been not giving us enough. back to your question how

did it happen that such a figure was head of. that's a mistake that's a mistake on the part of those who pointed i know who did it. should we cry over spilled milk. question from so it's good sport. and there are brief i'm not going to tell you that we're the. oldest sports publication in russia because we know that you are a. subscription for sport we know that russia is a very good at organizing major international sports events like the olympics and so on next year it will have very cool event we are hosting the world cup. we are all looking forward. to it and i know that everything will be fine but we know that big cities like moscow st petersburg and sort she they already got some

experience they know how to host such events but there are a few cities where even foreigners look. exotic. scholarship but sure but we do have a lot of experience access full experience of holding major international sports events i don't want to mention all of them because we've had the confederations cup we conducted that the highest level and the four inspectors. have been helping us. and everything is on track that you know we as we know we will have twelve stadiums. they need to. appeal to in they will be located in eleven cities and out of those twelve stadiums we do have one stadium where we have

a two month deal but nevertheless we will do everything. i. mean. now budgets spending is less than half so private money accounts for more than half of expenditures. but again we spend is goes to developing the infrastructure access roads airports. the rail stations. the. infrastructure i'm sure that everything will be top quality and will be delivered on time. take some questions from international media a.b.c. news. just. spicy but. thank you mr

president terry moran with a.b.c. news first in the united states investigations by congress the department of justice and the media have uncovered a very large number of contacts between russian citizens associated with your government and high officials of the trump campaign and some of those officials are now being prosecuted for a line about those contacts all this is not normal and many americans are saying where there's that much smoke there must be fire how would you explain to americans the sheer number of contacts between the trump campaign and your government and second if i may it's almost been a year since downall trump has been elected president you praised donald trump during the campaign what is your assessment of donald trump as president after one year especially. the which of. the second parts. it's not up to me to assess.

what trump has been doing it's up to the those who have elected him it's up to the american people and there's been some major achievements even in this short span of time look at the markets the markets are up. pretty strongly that means that investors trust the american economy that means they have a lot of confidence in it's it means that they trust the decisions by trump if. it isn't with them certainly we have a lot of respect for the opposition in the u.s. those who oppose donald trump but you know that's an objective outcome there's been some things that not been able to execute like the health care if. as for international relations he's been. promised to improve relations with russia even

if he wanted to do that he is not able to do specific restrictions but does he still have this decision maybe he doesn't have it you have to ask him but i really hope that she still have that he has that desire because it's in the interests of the russian and american nation in the hope that we will overcome. shared threats is terrorism and environmental issues i hope we can work together on their. weapons of mass destruction proliferation. the middle east north korea and other issues there are other issues where we can work much better when we work jointly. but. that. book well that's pretty much it.

isn't it. that's been. brought in by the nose you know that's been invented by those who are in the opposition the people who oppose but president trump. to delegitimize. at that time in office. really seems strange to me. because they don't understand it seems that the don't understand that they. are not mind their own nation but in the. very limits the powers of the president has been elected it means that they don't have respect for people that those americans who elected donald trump. by any campaign take

any action campaign in the world should we stop should we ban any contacts ambassador was accused of meeting someone but that happens everywhere there's general practice where diplomats. and even members of government meets with every candidate with their campaign they discuss some issues they discuss prospects of development when they're trying to figure out what those people will do when and if they come to power what's so particular about it. but you know what's so strange about it why do you think there is why do you have this spy hysteria. russian meddling hysteria so. investigation on social media well the ads that russian companies purchased. is

worth. one point point one it was something percent compared with huge numbers by american companies so you can just compare it but even to some few it seems that sits way too much for them and take the situation with the russian media like r t and sputnik then share what you. mean one of the tall information markets is. really tiny compared to all global russian american media have been doing globally and here in russia so what about the freedom of press. the main tenets. of. the us democracy. as well. more successful so molest access for it just need to. do your

homework to draw the right conclusions we shouldn't attack each other. so let's think about it and let's draw the right conclusions. ok let's move to the other way that t.v. see t.v. network. thank you. t.v. center i have a question on the economy just like you asked a question on the monetary policy of the central bank you said we are enjoying a unprecedented low inflation and the key interest rate has gone down but the central bank is still being criticized one of the main trends was inflation targeting and the know there have been many skeptics skepticism but. the central bank has achieved that but the debate still rages on some economists say that what is good for the.