Donetsk, Jan 24 — DAN. The government has to expedite decision-making in improving the standard of living in the new Russian regions, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Cabinet officials on Tuesday.

“We have envisioned a whole range of measures there (in the new Russian territories — eds Donetsk News Agency) in the social sphere to raise the standards of living, incomes etc., ” Putin said on a video posted by Russia’s TASS news agency.  “I won’t cite them all; we have the money for it; I’d ask you to speed up the making of the appropriate technical decisions to launch this work as soon as possible.”

Earlier, he ordered the government to work out by the end of March a program to improve the standard of living in the Donbass Republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The standard of living in the new regions has to be on par with the national level by the year 2030, the head of state said.*jk