Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted an eight-year-old girl in the Kremlin as she joined the leader in a bizarre phone call to the country’s finance minister to ask for a budget grant for her home region. Kremlin released a video of Vladimir Putin welcoming the girl- Raisat Akipova. The Russian president’s appearance was in tandem with his latest appearance since Wagner mutiny last month.
On the call, Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov initially sounded confused, failing to respond to the girl’s greeting. Then he agreed to the extra funding for her home region in southern Russia.
“Excellent!” Vladimir Putin responded as he told the the girl, “We’ve got 5 billion roubles for Dagestan.” While the girl talked to the finance minister, Vladimir Putin was seen uncharacteristically chuckling.
He then made a call to Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin as well. Last week, Vladimir Putin was visited Dagestan and quite unusually mingled with a large crowd of people. The Kremlin called the visit an evidence of the “astounding” support that the Russian leader has in the country after the mercenary group’s brief mutiny that had prompted him to warn of the risk of civil war in Russia.
Vladimir Putin told Raisat that he had invited her and her parents to Moscow as he had been “upset” by seeing a picture of her in tears after failing to get to see him during his Dagestan trip.