Moscow, Feb 1, (dpa/GNA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin, has called on his country’s banks to begin operations in the annexed territories of Ukraine.
“What they feared in the past, the sanctions, has long since happened. Why be afraid?” Putin said on Wednesday in Moscow, at a meeting on the social and economic development of the region.
“You have to go to these areas more actively and work there,” he said, according to the Russian TASS agency.
Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula in 2014. After the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow also declared the Ukrainian administrative regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson to be Russian territory, in violation of international law.
However, Russian troops only control part of these territories.
Russian banks were cautious about getting involved in Crimea due to sanctions. They are also barely represented in the other regions.
Putin spoke of a rapid integration of the territories into Russian structures. He said that 2 million people were already receiving regular pensions and other payments. By 2025, the figure should be 5 million people.
In reality, however, the occupying power is reportedly making pension payments to the Ukrainians living there provisional on them accepting Russian passports.
The Russian president announced the goal of bringing the annexed territories, which he said historically belonged to Russia, up to the average Russian standard of living by 2030.
GNA