MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia said it would boost spending on security by five billion dollars next year to fight terrorism after President Vladimir Putin moved to redirect the country's political efforts to the same objective.
"New means are needed in the fight against terrorism," Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying. "We will allocate the necessary means to strengthen the fight against terrorism."
He said the interior ministry, border guards and intelligence agencies would receive an additional 50 billion rubles (1.6 billion dollars), while the defense ministry would get a 107-billion-ruble boost next year.
The additional funds would be earmarked mainly for recruitment of personnel, training of anti-terror specialists and acquisition of better technologies and more equipment for use in boosting Russia's defenses against terror attacks.
The successive announcements of political and economic reorientations toward new anti-terrorism measures came as Russia reeled from a series of major terror attacks in recent weeks that culminated in a school hostage crisis that killed hundreds.
Those attacks, which occurred in the space of little more than a week and also included the downing of two commercial airliners and a suicide bombing outside a Moscow metro, put the Kremlin under heavy pressure to act against terror.
On Monday, Putin proposed sweeping new political measures, including the scrapping of direct election of regional governors designed to strengthen his control over the country, that he said were needed to combat terrorism.
The 2005 draft budget, due to be considered by the State Duma in the coming weeks, would also earmark 1.4 billion rubles for improving security in the Moscow subway system, Kudrin said, according to Interfax.
Russia said on August 20 that overall funding for the so-called power structures -- including the armed forces, various policing bodies and the intelligence services -- would grow next year by about 27 percent to more than 32 billion dollars, an increase of about four billion dollars from this year.
The figures announced Tuesday appeared to boost that already planned funding in the 2005 draft state budget by around one billion dollars.
Sergei Stepashin, a former prime minister and current chairman of the powerful state audit chamber that supervises budgetary outlays, said the 2005 draft budget was balanced and results-oriented.
"The finance ministry has done major work here," Stepashin was quoted by Interfax as saying. "It is important now that these means are used as planned."
A top Russian official sought to allay concerns, particularly abroad, that a retooling of the country's political and economic plans meant Moscow would deviate from larger macroeconomic reforms under way for the past decade.
"No changes are planned in economic policy, except for the intensification of economic advancement in the north Caucacus," Economics Minister German Gref said Tuesday, according to Interfax.
His mention of the north Caucacus was in reference to Putin's announcement Monday of the creation of a new federal commission charged with raising health, education and social welfare standards in the region.
Putin described the north Caucacus, where the Beslan school hostage crisis occurred, as a "strategic" zone for Russia but one where terrorism was gaining strength, hence the need for better social support to attack terrorism's roots.
Gref said that efforts in the region would focus on creation of new jobs, but did not offer further details on how the government would go about this.