—developing an administrative system overseeing the quality and accessibility of medical assistance, and the training of health-care specialists;

—providing for the qualitative transformation of the structure of infections and for the liquidation of the preconditions of epidemics, including epidemics caused by particularly dangerous infectious pathogens, by developing and implementing promising technologies and national programs of state support for disease prevention.

7. CULTURE

79.Strategic objectives ensuring national security in the cultural sphere are as follows:

—broadening access of large sections of the population to the best examples of national and foreign culture and art by creating modern territorially distributed information banks;

—creating conditions for the stimulation of creative self-realization within the population, by improving systems of cultural enlightenment, the organization of leisure activities, and mass extracurricular artistic education;

—assisting the development of the cultural potential of Russia’s regions and supporting regional cultural initiatives.

80.The main threats to national security in the cultural sphere are the dominance of production of mass culture oriented towards the spiritual needs of marginalized groups and likewise unlawful infringements against cultural objects.

81.Negative influences on the state of national security in the cultural sphere are intensified by attempts to revise perspectives on Russia’s history, its role, and its place in world history; and by the propagandizing of a lifestyle based on permissiveness and violence, or racial, national, and religious intolerance.

82.In order to counteract threats in the cultural sphere, the forces of national security together with civil society institutions ensure the effectiveness of state regulation intended to support and develop national cultures, tolerance, self-respect, and likewise the development of international [in the sense of interethnic] and interregional cultural ties.

83.The strengthening of national security in the cultural sphere will be served by preserving and developing indigenous cultures within Russia’s multinational population, and the citizenry’s spiritual values; by improving the material-technical basis of cultural and leisure establishments; by perfecting the system of training of cadres and providing for their social welfare; by supporting the production and distribution of domestic cinematography; by developing cultural tourism; by establishing government contracts for the creation of cinematographic and printed works, television, radio programs, and internet resources; and likewise by using Russia’s cultural potential in the service of multilateral international cooperation.

84.In the medium and long term, the resolution of national security challenges in the cultural sphere are achieved by acknowledging the primary role of culture in the rebirth and preservation of cultural-moral values, by reinforcing the spiritual unity of the multinational population of the Russian Federation and the international image of Russia as a country with a very rich traditional and dynamically developing contemporary culture, by creating a system of spiritual and patriotic education for Russian citizens, and finally by developing.

8. THE ECOLOGY OF LIVING SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

85.Strategic objectives relating to ecological security and environmental management are:

—preserving of the environment and ensuring its protection;

—redressing the environmental consequences of economic activity in the context of a growing economy and global climate changes.

86.The state of national security in the ecological sphere is negatively affected by the depletion of world reserves of mineral, water and biological resources, and likewise by the presence in the Russian Federation of ecologically disadvantaged regions.

87.The state of national security in the ecological sphere is worsened by the maintenance of a significant number of dangerous production processes, whose activity leads to the destruction of the ecological balance, including the disruption of sanitary-epidemiological and/or sanitary-hygienic standards of drinking water used by the general population; disposal of radioactive waste from the nuclear fuel cycle is not subject to normative legal regulation and oversight. The strategic risk of exhaustion of the country’s most important mineral and raw material resources is growing, as the rate of extraction of many mineral resources declines.

88.In order to counteract threats in the sphere of ecological security and environmental management, the forces of national security together with civil society institutions create the conditions for the introduction of ecologically safe production; the search for promising energy sources; the creation and implementation of a state program for the establishment of strategic reserves of mineral and raw material resources sufficient to supply Russia’s mobilization requirements; and the guaranteed provision of water and biological resources to meet the needs of the population and the economy.

9. STRATEGIC STABILITY AND EQUITABLE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

89.The achievement of the Russian Federation’s priorities for stable development is supported by an active foreign policy, whose efforts are focused on seeking agreement and common interests with other states, on the basis of a system of bilateral and multilateral mutually beneficial partnership relations.

90.The creation of favorable conditions for Russia’s stable development in the long term is achieved by ensuring strategic stability, including by means of consistent movement towards a world free from nuclear weapons, and by creating conditions of equal security for all.

91.Russia bases its relations with the international community on the principle of maintaining stability and predictability in the area of strategic offensive arms and attributes particular significance to the achievement of new full-scale bilateral agreements on the continued reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.

92.Russia will assist with engaging other states, first of all those possessing nuclear weapons but also those interested in joint action to ensure mutual security, in a process of establishing strategic stability.

93.Russia believes that the maintenance of strategic stability and equitable strategic partnership can be supported by the presence of contingents of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in conflict zones, on the basis of norms of international law, with the goal of resolving political, economic, and other challenges by non-military means.

94.On the world stage, Russia will act from a position founded on an unchanging course towards joint participation with other states in the reinforcement of international mechanisms for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, means of their delivery, and related goods and technologies; on the unacceptability of use of military force in contravention of the United Nations Charter; and likewise from a position of adherence to arms control and rational sufficiency in military construction.

95.In order to preserve strategic stability and equitable strategic partnership, the Russian Federation:

—will fulfill existing treaties and agreements pertaining to the limitation and reduction of arms, will participate in the development and conclusion of new agreements corresponding to Russia’s national interests;

—is prepared to engage in further discussion of questions surrounding the reduction of nuclear potentials on the basis of bilateral agreements and in multilateral fora and likewise will assist in creating appropriate conditions, allowing for the reduction of nuclear armaments without detracting from international security or strategic stability;