Kommersant: Crimea will receive money instead of Murmansk

The government discuss the sequestration of state financing of the Murmansk transport hub by 75% and the direction of the released 31.5 billion rubles. on the development of ports of the Azov-Black Sea basin of Russia and Crimea.

Thus, as the Kommersant newspaper writes, contrary to Vladimir Putin’s statements that financing of Crimea will be carried out exclusively at the expense of reserves, the reduction of state investigations to Russian projects, apparently, cannot be avoided.

In early April, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich held a meeting on the development of ports of the Azov-Black Sea basin and providing Crimea by transport and energy infrastructure, sources in the industry told the publication.

According to them, the protocol prepared following the results of the meeting was an instruction of the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Economics and the Minister of the Open Government Mikhail Abyzov to prepare proposals for adjusting the project of the Murmansk transport hub (MTU) in order to reduce the volume of budgetary captures into it by at least 31.5 billion rubles.

A source of Kommersant says that funds are proposed to transfer to "priority transport projects in the Azov-Black Sea region." We are talking about the development of railway approaches to the ports (Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Taman, etc.) and seaports of Crimea (Theodosia, Sevastopol, Kerch), he added.

At the same time, on the eve of the direct line, Vladimir Putin announced that the costs of subsidizing the programs for the development of Crimea will not require reviewing the budget of Russia, and the projects will be implemented at the expense of the government reserve.

Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov said that the total reserve is 240 billion rubles. for 2014 and 80 billion rubles. for 2015. The total expenses for subsidizing Crimean programs this year (without infrastructure projects) were estimated at 100 billion rubles.

The representative of Arkady Dvorkovich refused to comment, the Ministry of Economy advised me to contact the Ministry of Transport for explanations, and there they did not answer the newspaper’s request.