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Crimea and Sevastopol

Putin accepts PM's proposal of disbanding Ministry of Crimean Affairs

The ministry has performed its task of integrating the republic into Russia

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin Dmitry Astakhov/TASS

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin

© Dmitry Astakhov/TASS

NOVO-OGARYOVO, July 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to the proposal of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that the Ministry of Crimean Affairs should be dissolved.

At the meeting with Putin in the Novo-Ogaryovo presidential residence outside Moscow, Medvedev said the ministry has accomplished the task of integrating the republic into Russia.

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"I believe it is possible to consider that the Ministry of Crimean Affairs has performed its tasks," Medvedev said, adding that its dissolution is aimed at saving funds and rationalizing federal bodies of the executive branch.

The Ministry of Crimean Affairs was created in spring 2014 to ensure Crimea’s integration in the Russian legal and economic space. The ministry unveiled a federal target programme on the development of Crimea and Sevastopol up to 2020 that has become the basic document for the next five years.

Some 700 billion rubles ($12.4 billion) is due to be allocated for the programme.

The prime minister said the two other regional ministries - the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Ministry of North Caucasus Affairs - should be preserved.

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One year on from Crimea’s reunification with Russia

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Crimea and Sevastopol Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev

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