The region’s social and economic development programme has been put on ice.
The Russian government approved 46 federal programmes for the next year, the official website of the Cabinet says. But not a single programme provides any investments in Crimea.
The development of the annexed peninsula seems to be put on the waiting list: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a corresponding order.
Earlier Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov declared that the government would not give back 7.2 billion confiscated from Russians’ pensions. “There are no sources for this,” said Siluanov, according to the news agency Interfax. “Nobody is going to refund that money because it went to Crimea, to anti-crisis measures. Now that resource still exists and it will, in all probability, go toward supporting socioeconomic development programs in Crimea and Sevastopol.”
But it is highly likely that Russia has decided to drop the idea.
