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Coronavirus pandemic

Support measures during pandemic in Russia were effective — Kremlin

Earlier, the head of the Accounts Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, said that the government could have allocated more funds to support citizens and businesses

© Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/. The Kremlin is convinced that the measures taken by the authorities to mitigate the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia were effective, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

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Earlier, the head of the Accounts Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, said that the government could have allocated more funds to support citizens and businesses.

When asked to comment on this opinion Peskov said: "In general, the Kremlin considers the measures taken to combat the crisis manifestations during the pandemic to be effective, timely, carefully adjusted and ensuring that the consequences of the global crisis are minimized as much as possible."

"Why? The comparative figures of [economic] decline, rise of unemployment and so on, starkly illustrate it [the effectiveness of measures - TASS], if you take many countries - in Europe, America - and compare their data with that of Russia," the Kremlin spokesman explained.

According to him, the figures "clearly show that the measures [taken in Russia] really worked."

Peskov also drew attention to the fact that "there is a huge number of countries that spent a lot of money in proportion to the size of their economies and the number of the population. He added that there were countries that distributed so-called "helicopter money."

"This has neither resulted in an improved situation for business, nor helped prevent a slowdown in the economies of those countries," the Kremlin official stated.

Peskov recalled the words of President Vladimir Putin that the measures of support adopted by the government were "effective, timely and well-thought-out."

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