Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has publicly expressed his disagreement with possible cuts in the state budget for 2017.
"If the practice of budget cuts continues, the country will not be able to develop, and we will not be able to fulfill our social obligations," Kadyrov wrote in a post on his Instagram account.
He also proposed that the Federal Program on the Restoration of the Economy and Social Sphere of the Chechen Republic, which he called "very effective," should be resumed.
"In recent years, dozens, hundreds of social facilities, schools, and medical clinics were build in Chechnya," Kadyrov wrote. "They are equipped with modern facilities which require expensive maintenance. For this we need money."
Kadyrov claimed to have drafted his own budget proposal, in which he had identified priority areas for development while giving orders to control investment and expansion of the tax base.