The Russian government should not pad out the state budget for the next three years in order to avoid a budget cut in the future, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
"I want to stress that government's view about budget policy is the same, we should keep within our means," Putin told a cabinet meeting.
"If we do not want to cut the budget in the future, and deprive people of basic needs, take painful measures and deny government help to people who need it, as some developed countries do, we must not pad out the budget. We should be more careful in this," he said.
