Overview
- At the Strategic Development Council, Vladimir Putin set six systemic tasks for 2026, including launching a structural plan through 2030 to create higher-paid jobs in high-tech and other value-added sectors.
- He ordered an accelerated “whitening” of the economy, calling for tighter oversight of cash circulation and a sharp cut in illegal employment, moving measures up from timelines that had stretched into late 2026.
- The agenda includes raising productivity, expanding the use of artificial intelligence and domestic technologies, and strengthening the regional focus of economic projects, alongside a call for businesses to apply a corporate demographic standard to support families.
- The government approved a roadmap to reduce the list of professions barred to women by December 2027, with ministries, employers and unions to identify exclusions and complete health risk studies by March 2027.
- On diplomacy, spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised the end of US “megaphone diplomacy” and said talks must remain behind closed doors, as German lawmaker Michael Roth warned of hard concessions for Kyiv and the EU and Ukraine’s president said Washington’s plan has been trimmed to 20 points with no territorial compromise agreed.