Page 24 - RusRPTAug19

2.13 Politics - misc
Waste services want taxes more favorable to recycling. Authorities are ostensibly trying to encourage wider recycling initiatives in Russia. Waste services, in turn, see the authorities as sending mixed signals by taxing profits on recycled goods sold, which combined with lackluster investment means that the shift to more sustainable waste management has stalled. While Russia’s landfills continue to metastasize around major urban areas, the government has made many announcements to the effect of needing more recycling and less waste volume. That flies in the face of existing taxes on waste services, which several companies in the industry say are more favorable to older systems of dumping trash into landfills. Compounding the problem is limited investment from both the private sector and the state in new methods of processing waste. Companies in the field are asking for taxation to reflect priorities stated by the government, as well as more investment with which to make systematic changes. Authorities hope to increase the share of trash recycled from 7% to 36% by 2024. In the past decade, the government has dedicated 19 projects totaling 30 billion rubles ($475 million) to waste management.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for measures to be hammered out on curbing the list of reasons for arrests in the business field by December 1. A respective item is on the list of requests after the head of state’s Q&A session. This document was released on the Kremlin’s website on July 1. December 1 has been set as the date for the request to be executed.
Putin ridicules green energy in speech in Russia’s dirtiest region.
Russian president Vladimir Putin ridiculed green energy during a speech in Sverdlovsk, Russia’s dirties region, asking if anyone cares about the worms and birds that are killed by wind turbines. “Everyone knows that indeed wind power generation is good, but does anyone remember about birds in this case? How many birds die?” Putin said in a keynote speech at a Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit. The wind turbines “shake so much that worms get out from the soil!” he said in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Sverdlovsk region. “Will it be comfortable for people to live on the planet with a row of wind turbines and covered with several layers of sun batteries?”
2.14 Polls & Sociology
Two out of five Russians (38%) do not wish to see President Vladimir Putin remain president after his current term in office expires in 2024, according to a Levada Center poll cited by Vedomosti daily on July 30. Half (54%) of the respondents would want to see Putin remain president, while the number of undecided respondents stands at record-low 8%. According to the Russian constitution Putin cannot stand as president at the end of this term and must leave. However, a possible union with Belarus could be seen as creating a new country and thus providing an excuse to side step the constitutional term limit. Another possible dodge being discussed is changing Russia from a republic to a parliamentary democracy and appointing Putin as prime minister. Putin's popularity is sliding post-Crimea boost, undermined by weak economy, shrinking incomes, and the unpopular pension reform cutting the retirement age in 2018. The discussions of "Problem 2024" or the
24 RUSSIA Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com