Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was quite a challenge to discuss a number of big infrastructure projects with Russia’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and former Economy Minister German Gref.
According to Putin, he had had to "snap" at Kudrin a couple of times, because the latter had opposed such projects due to their high cost.
"He [Kudrin] was against every issue," the head of state told TASS in an interview for the project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin."
"For instance, he strongly opposed building the ring road around St. Petersburg. He and Gref, the Minister of Economics and the Minister of Finance, visited me twice," Putin noted. "They agreed to allocate funds to build the ring road around St. Petersburg only when I snapped at them," the president added.
Putin said that he had had to resort to the same tactic to press for other big infrastructure projects, noting that those facilities had eventually been built and were operating successfully.
However, Kudrin’s viewpoint changed after he had taken office as Chairman of the Russian Accounts Chamber in 2018, Putin added that "the viewpoint has certainly changed", and apparently "the viewer" could see better because he "is no longer afraid of being socked in the eye," the Russia leader said.
