Putin arrives on Sakhalin to chair conference on local development problems

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has arrived on the Far-Eastern island of Sakhalin where he will chair a conference on the problems of development encountered in the Sakhalin region, the only fully insular constituent territory of the country. The conference is bound to see a very representative attendance, including the federal ministers in charge of economic development, the energy sector, healthcare, transport, regional development policies, as well as the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, and executives of a number of large corporations - Rosneft, RZD, RusGidro, Gazprom, and Aeroflot. Right from the airport, Putin contacted by videoconference the Orlan drilling platform located in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northern sector of Sakhalin’s continental shelf. The platform was built as part of the Sakhalin-1 project and it is almost fifty meters tall. The drilling from it began in 2005 and its job has been finished by now - it has drilled 21 wells. In addition, Putin will visit the Uspenskoye testing range where he will watch combat simulation by units of Russia’s Eastern Military District /EMD/. Together with the Central Military District, the branches and services of the EMD are performing exercise tasks, while ships of the Pacific Fleet are engaged in the simultaneous war games in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. The amassed inspection of combat readiness of the EMD and the CMD was launched at Putin’s order July 13. Tuesday night, Putin will take a flight to the East-Siberian city of Chita where he will chair a conference on the social and economic situation and the development of private enterprise in the Trans-Baikal territory.