Personnel shortage: Putin proposed to involve veterans of his military to work in municipalities

Participants in the special military operation should be actively involved in work at all levels of government, including in municipalities. Vladimir Putin said this on April 21 at a meeting with the heads of municipalities. During the transition to the civil service, veterans of the SVO should be helped to receive the necessary education, he said. The local self-government bodies asked the president to equalize the rights of managers in the border area with the rights of those who work in Donbass and Novorossiya: we are talking about payments in case of death or injury. Among other topics on the agenda are the problem of dilapidated housing, the desolation of territories and the "digital fence" between people and government. Who received the Service award from the hands of the president and what advice Vladimir Putin gave to local managers from his experience can be found in the Izvestia article.

Putin met with representatives of municipal authorities

Russia celebrates Local Government Day on April 21: on this date, the II All—Russian Municipal Forum "Small Motherland - the Strength of Russia" started in the capital's National Center "Russia". About 4 thousand people from all over the country came here, mostly heads of municipalities. This forum has already become a big celebration for them: right at the exit from the metro, participants were greeted by creative ensembles of Russian folk songs, congratulating everyone on the beginning of the forum. The mayors and district heads in line at the entrance exchanged plans: which sessions they would attend, how they were preparing for the event, and what they wanted to see in Moscow after the forum.

Vladimir Putin also came here. The head of the Russian Federation visited this site less than a month ago — on March 26 at the congress of the Movement of the First. The President congratulated the participants and guests of the forum on the Day of Local Self-Government and noted that such an exchange of experience and practices would contribute to improving the quality of life of Russians. The Head of state also appreciated the role of local governments in achieving the country's national goals. He noted the contribution of municipal workers in the regions of Donbass and Novorossiya, as well as in the border region: they work in very difficult conditions, sometimes risking their lives, fulfilling their professional and human duties, helping people, the president said.

— You are dedicating yourself to a difficult but very significant task. It is to you that people primarily go to solve their daily problems, and it is to you that they pin their hopes for tangible, necessary changes for the better. That is why working at the municipal level is a huge responsibility, a real vocation, and, I emphasize, an important mission for the state and for our society. This is really service," the president said at the award ceremony for the winners of the Service Award.

Vladimir Putin congratulated all the winners and laureates of the All—Russian Municipal Award, which is awarded for their special contribution to the development of municipalities and improving the quality of life of citizens. The Head of State presented the statuette to Vladimir Tarantsov, First Deputy Head of the Administration of the Veidelevsky district of the Belgorod Region, to the winner in the nomination "Courage and Heroism for the benefit of serving the Motherland." This area is located in the south-west of the Belgorod region, it borders the Donetsk People's Republic and is located in the border area. The award is given in 10 nominations to representatives of the municipal community who have made a significant contribution to solving local issues and developing local self-government. This year, more than 41,000 applications from all regions of the Russian Federation have been reviewed, which is twice as many as in 2024.

Today, the municipal level has a very important function — it acts as the most important tool for communication between people and the state, since it is municipal officials who should be the first to get involved in people's problems, experts explained.

— Citizens first come to the local administration with their questions and only then to the regional structures. If the system is working properly, then it is local officials who solve most of the problems, as they can usually be solved using very simple methods. Therefore, the municipal level has a very important function — it is to remove up to 90% of the problems that people cannot solve themselves," said Dmitry Yelovsky, a political scientist. — But there is also a serious difficulty: many municipal officials are not ready for normal communication with people, they are not ready to talk to them. Therefore, in my opinion, it is now necessary, first of all, to train municipal officials to work with people and not leave the population alone with problems.

According to Dmitry Orlov, head of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications (APEC), the effectiveness of communication between the Russian municipal authorities and residents is really suffering today. According to him, other difficulties include low resource availability and lack of integration into the general system of public power.

Attracting SVO fighters to civil service in the regions

On the same day, Vladimir Putin met with the heads of municipalities of Russian regions. The conversation lasted almost two hours, and the range of topics turned out to be wide: from the development of small towns to strengthening support programs. At the same time, a significant part of the discussion was devoted to their own and the involvement of veterans of the special operation in public service in municipalities.

The head of Tula, Chairman of the Tula City Duma Alexey Erk said that their experience is really in demand in a variety of areas, however, higher education and experience in municipal service remain mandatory requirements for senior positions, which many fighters do not have. To do this, he proposed to hire veterans of his military education with secondary vocational education or a bachelor's degree to work in the field of education, followed by the obligation to obtain a university diploma. There has already been such an experience in the regions of Donbass and Novorossiya. The President said that fighters who want to continue working in government should be helped to gain the necessary experience, and called for their active involvement in work at all levels, including in municipalities.

— I am very glad that we have people with combat experience at all levels of government, and this is especially important for the so-called new, historical Russian territories. Because the situation there, you know, is not easy, it is combative, and it needs people like you and those who came with you: people who are not afraid of anything," he said.

Vladimir Putin, talking about the participants of the SVR who became municipal employees, said that they had moved from one front line to another: the president explained this by saying that the local government level is the most difficult area in the entire management system — "this is the front line, there is no one behind you, you are ahead." And often these "leading edges" coincide: the head of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district of the Belgorod region, Vitaly Kutomanov, asked the president to introduce payments to municipal employees in the border region for deaths and injuries, a similar measure is already in effect for officials in Novorossiya. Thus, four municipal employees died and 16 were injured during the evacuation of residents from border settlements. Vladimir Putin agreed with the proposal.

— Of course, if we have such payments for those seconded, as you just said, to new territories, in this case, people who work in the border region are not much different, they also take risks, like our comrades, our colleagues who come to the so-called new territories. And, of course, everyone should have equal rights here. We will do everything for this," the head of state promised.

Problems of local government

Vladimir Putin separately appealed to municipal employees with a request to make specific suggestions on topics of concern to them. These are mainly social and personnel issues. The head of the Dobrovsky municipal District of the Lipetsk region, Anatoly Popov, for example, is concerned about education issues: he asked the president to provide funding for rural agricultural colleges so that children can study without leaving the district. The President was even pleased with the news about the population growth in the village of Dobroye.

— In a country like Russia, with its colossal territory, we must act more flexibly, more subtly and in no case allow the depopulation of territories. We have a simple task, so small towns are certainly among our priorities," the president said.

The head of the Starobilsk municipal district of the LPR, Vladimir Chernev, shared with the president that one of the most pressing issues for citizens is the registration of land for individual residential buildings that had not previously been properly designed. Putin agreed with the idea of transferring the land on which residential buildings are located to municipalities for the further transfer of these land plots to the owners. And he called for careful consideration of the issue: the land should not be "stuck at the municipal level."

At the same time, managers should not allow the growth of dilapidated and dilapidated housing and are obliged to repair houses in a timely manner, otherwise it will be impossible to unravel the accumulated difficulties, Vladimir Putin recalled. He even gave an example of his work as deputy chairman of the government of St. Petersburg, which provided good experience in these matters: "It is only necessary to delay the timely indexation of tariffs, then that's it, goodbye. Then making a decision on indexation in a year, in two, in three, seems completely impossible without federal subsidies, because such blows to the pockets of citizens, they are unjustified," he stressed.

Discussing the issue of introducing digitalization of local governments, the president noted that it is important for local authorities not to create a "digital fence" between people and managers. Such platforms increase labor efficiency, but this should not replace live direct communication with people, the head of state said.