Vladimir Putin may visit Buryatia next week

Russian President Vladimir Putin may visit Buryatia next week. This was reported to Vedomosti by two sources close to the presidential embassy in the Far Eastern Federal District, and confirmed by an interlocutor close to the regional authorities. Vedomosti sent a request to the press secretary of the head of state, Dmitry Peskov, but have not yet received a response.

As part of the trip, Putin, according to two Vedomosti sources, will visit the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant (part of the Russian Helicopters holding company of the Rostec state corporation). According to one of the interlocutors of Vedomosti, the president will pay attention “not only to the elites of the republic, but also to its inhabitants.”

In addition, as noted by two interlocutors of Vedomosti, Putin may, as part of a trip to the region, as is traditionally the case in such cases, meet with its leader. Former Deputy Transport Minister Alexei Tsydenov was re-elected for a second term in September 2022.

According to the Kremlin website, the last time Putin visited Buryatia was in August 2017, before the first election of Tsydenov, when he was still in the status of acting head of the republic. Then the president visited the Baikal State Natural Biosphere Reserve, held a meeting on the conservation of the lake and the Baikal natural territory, and a meeting on the elimination of natural fires. Already at the end of the trip, Putin met with Tsydenov.

Before the election of the head of Buryatia, when Tsydenov was re-elected, the president did not visit the republic. The nearest campaign to be held in the subject is the elections to the People’s Khural (Parliament) in September 2023. The elections to the Legislative Assembly in 2023, in addition to Buryatia, will be held in the Irkutsk Region and the Trans-Baikal Territory, and the media field of these three regions is closely integrated, reminds political scientist Alexander Kynev.