UPDATE: Medvedev says Russia’s entire government resigns

(Adds details in last six paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (PRIME) -- Russia’s entire government has resigned, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

“Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, dear colleagues, you all witnessed the message of the Russian president, Vladimir Vladimirovich as the president outlined not only the priorities for work in our country for the coming year, but also outlined a number of fundamental changes to the Russian constitution. These changes, when they are adopted – and this will likely be done after discussion as it was said – they will make significant changes not only to a number of articles of the constitution, but also to the balance of power as a whole,” Medvedev told Putin.

“(The balance of) the executive branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch. In this context, it’s obvious that we, as the government of the Russian Federation, should provide the president of our country an opportunity to make all decisions necessary for this. And in these conditions, I believe that it would be right, in accordance with article 117 of the Russian constitution, for the government of the Russian Federation to resign,” he said.

Putin asked the government to fully fulfill its duties until a new government is formed and said he plans to meet with each member of the government.

Putin also said he plans to introduce a position of deputy chairman of the Security Council and offer the job to Medvedev. The president acts as the council’s chairman.

“As for our joint work with Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev), we just talked... Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev was the head of the state, the president of the Russian Federation, and has been heading the government for almost eight years now, this is probably the longest term in this post in recent history. We agreed that there is a strongly pronounced presidential bloc, and there is a government bloc, the president, of course, is responsible for everything, but above all, the presidential bloc is first of all in charge of issues of security, defense, and so on,” Putin said.

Medvedev has always dealt with issues of improving the defense capability and security of the country. “I think it is possible and asked him to deal with issues of this category in the future, I believe it is possible and will do in the near future – the post of deputy chairman of the Security Council will be introduced, and the chairman of the Security Council, as you know, is the president,” he added.

Putin said he is ready to make changes to the current legislation to introduce this position if necessary.

The State Duma’s Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoi said that the resignation of the government will not affect implementation of measures voiced by Putin in his address to the Federal Assembly.

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