Concerning the topic of the special operation, the heads of the regions focus on supporting its participants

Governors report on their work in 2022 in legislative assemblies. Vedomosti studied the speeches of the heads of 10 regions over the past year. Only one of them spoke in detail about working with the sponsored territory. The Governor of the Orenburg Region Denis Pasler, speaking at the Legislative Assembly on June 29, spoke about the results of patronage over the Perevalsky District of the Luhansk People’s Republic, which the region took on July 5, 2022. According to Pasler, “thousands of tons of cargo have been sent during this time: food, medicine, clothing , building materials, refrigerators and boiler equipment.

“Our construction teams continue to work on the restoration of social facilities and residential buildings. Kindergartens, schools, hospitals, sports grounds, public infrastructure – this is an incomplete list of what has been repaired during this time. Our children’s camps hosted several hundred children from Perevalsk. Our specialists have helped the district to integrate into the Russian education, healthcare and social protection systems,” the governor continued.

On May 20, 2022, Vedomosti wrote that the Kremlin instructed the regions to take patronage over the territories of the DNR and LNR. Over the past year, the subjects of the Russian Federation provided support not only to the republics of Donbass, but also to the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions (all four regions became part of the Russian Federation on September 30, 2022).

But the heads of the regions spoke about the special operation. In particular, they focused on social support for the mobilized, volunteers and their families, Vedomosti drew attention.

The governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, in a report on July 27, spoke about the introduction of a social contract that combines all types of assistance to families of military personnel. At the time of the report, more than 10,000 such contracts were concluded for the amount of almost 1 billion rubles. Nikitin also said that the participants in the special operation and their relatives were given the right to compensate for the costs of gas-using equipment or the construction of an internal gas pipeline for an individual housing construction facility as part of additional gasification.

The governor of the Kirov region Alexander Sokolov, who reported to the Legislative Assembly on July 20, also drew attention to the topic of supporting the participants in the special operation. A press release on the results of the report, published on the website of the Legislative Assembly, notes that there are 28 support measures for military personnel and their families in the region.

Oleg Kozhemyako, Governor of Primorsky Krai, who spoke to the deputies on May 31, paid much attention to the topic of the special operation in his report. He spoke, in particular, about the establishment of the special distinction “Hero of Primorye” for military personnel and a one-time incentive for it in the amount of 1 million rubles, as well as the medal “Participant of a special military operation. Squad “Tiger”. In 2022, 138 fighters were awarded it, Kozhemyako specified.

In total, according to him, since the beginning of the special operation, the region has allocated 2.5 billion rubles for social support for the military and their families. A similar amount has been allocated for gear and equipment, the governor added.

But there are exceptions. For example, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Yevgeny Kuyvashev, in the course of his report for 2022 to the deputies of the Legislative Assembly, did not touch upon the topics of either the special operation, or support for military personnel, or support for sponsored territories at all.

Governors deliberately do not touch upon the topic of supporting new regions in the course of their reports to deputies, says political scientist Alexei Makarkin: “Otherwise, one would immediately have to raise the question of whether these funds should be directed to their region.” “Support for new regions is important for reporting to the center. Governors report to their deputies and voters about what they have done for their region,” he notes. The governors are adjusting to the structure of the problematic field of the population, says political scientist Yevgeny Minchenko.

According to Svetlana Platonova, Deputy Head of the Department of Special Projects of the Polylog CG, in 2022 the governors spoke more actively on the topic of the special operation than this year. “After all, at that time there were no unified and clear mechanisms for supporting military personnel, their families and residents of new regions. The governors had to manually control the situation and be the main speakers for the regional audience,” she says.

Now, according to Platonova, each governor keeps a balance between the topics of the special operation and regional issues. “This is due to the fact that the agenda of the special operation has become routinized. Residents are again concerned about basic problems: social sphere, infrastructure, improvement. And under these conditions, it is important for governors to demonstrate that the state is not only ready to solve strategic tasks in battle or in new regions, but also continues to work on the development of regions,” she specified.