The government of Dmitry Medvedev proposed reducing funding for the federal target program (FTP) to strengthen the unity of the Russian nation, designed until 2020, by 452 million rubles, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday .

The proposal is contained in a draft government resolution. We are talking about reducing the cost of the federal target program “Strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and the ethnocultural development of the peoples of the Russian Federation for 2014-2020” from 8181 million rubles to 7729 million rubles.

The amount of funds allocated from the federal budget for regional events, on the contrary, will increase by 259 million rubles (from 5997 million rubles to 6256 million rubles). The state will also finance from 70% to 95% of the costs of federal targeted program activities, freeing regions from the obligation to pay at least 30% of their cost as part of co-financing.

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) working in the field of interethnic politics will receive budget money this year for the last time. We are talking about 958 million rubles. The new Deputy Minister of Culture Alexander Zhuravsky, who oversees the department of interethnic relations in the department, told the publication that further funding of these NGOs will depend on the financial and economic situation in the country.

The Deputy Minister recalled the allocation of 22 million rubles in the budget for the next two years to create a system for monitoring interethnic and interfaith relations in the regions. In the Central Federal District (CFD), he said, pilot monitoring will be carried out “with immersion to the level of municipalities.” And based on the information received, the department, together with Rosstat, the Federal Security Service (FSO) and the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, will “build forecasts” of the interethnic situation in the regions.

In July 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that the government of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev introduce a unified system for monitoring interethnic relations and preventing conflicts on ethnic grounds in the country by the end of 2014. Before this, in October 2013, Putin ordered the creation of a Federal Monitoring Center by the end of 2014. It has not yet been created. A source of the publication close to the presidential administration said that the FSB was involved in the struggle between departments for the leadership of this center. The intelligence service insists that such a center be created for official information, the newspaper’s interlocutor said.

Funding for the federal target program to strengthen the unity of the nation will be reduced by 452 million rubles