Shoigu Continues to Promote His Proposal

The capital of Russia should be relocated to Siberia, and in addition, five cities with a population of up to one million should be built in Siberia. This statement was made by the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu during a meeting with the scientific community of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

According to Shoigu, these cities should have a population of at least 300,000 to 500,000 and should be focused on specific industries. He expressed regret that large-scale projects could not currently be implemented, such as the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station.

The Minister of Defense noted that people might remember how sincerely Soviet citizens participated in those grand construction projects.

It is worth mentioning that Shoigu has been promoting this idea since 2012, and this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that relocating the capital undoubtedly would not solve the region's problems; however, it was conceivable that several major companies' offices and federal agencies could potentially move to Siberia.