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Deterioration of Russia-West ties won’t affect domestic course, Kremlin assures

The Kremlin spokesman said the president has "an absolutely harmonic, clear, consistent and impressive plan for the country’s development"

MOSCOW, March 19./TASS/. Controversies sweeping the global arena won’t affect Russia’s domestic course of developments, including the formation of a new Cabinet, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He said the international agenda has no significant influence on these issues. "There is total self-sufficiency here, that is why some controversies are unlikely to influence any particular domestic process," Peskov said replying to the corresponding question.

He said the president has "an absolutely well-formed, clear, consistent and impressive plan for the country’s development" and this strategy has already started to take shape "with the release of the list of the president’s instructions based on which such a road map will be drawn up one way or another."

"The existence of this plan demonstrates that the president is fully concentrating on Russia’s domestic affairs - on seeing Russia develop according to its existing potential, on the basis of new opportunities that are to be opened up," he stated.

According to Peskov, Russian society is consolidated around the country’s development programs proposed by Putin rather than because of accusations made from the outside.

When asked whether London’s accusations against Moscow over the Salisbury poisoning affected Russians’ cohesion in the run-up to the election, Peskov noted that Russian society is fully consolidated as it is. "It is consolidated around plans on the country’s further development rather than someone’s accusations, and the results of the election have shown that as tellingly as possible," the Kremlin spokesman said.

On Sunday, Putin declared the start of substantive work on shaping the future government. In reply to the TASS question on when the head of state plans to form a new government, Putin said, "all changes to the government should be carried out by the president who has assumed office for a new term." "That is why I will now be thinking about what must be done and how."

According to preliminary data provided by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC), incumbent Russian President Vladimir is headed for a landslide victory in the presidential race having garnered 76.66% with 99.84% of ballots counted. Trailing behind Putin is Pavel Grudinin, the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (11.80%), while LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is occupying third place with 5.66% of the votes. The voter turnout stood at 67.49%.