President of Russia Vladimir Putin will make an important announcement at a Defense Department meeting next week, according to Russian state media.

“We are waiting for important announcements,” Pavel Zarubin, host of the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program, said today on the air of the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.

According to the TV program, Putin will chair the annual expanded meeting of the defense ministry. The exact date of the meeting is not yet known.

The Russian president is expected to travel to Minsk tomorrow Monday for talks with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

At a cabinet meeting last week, Putin called for adjustments to weapons programs.

It is likely that he will continue to push for the transformation of the Russian economy into a war economy as Russian troops continue to face supply problems during the war in Ukraine.

Due to continued difficulties in the war, Putin has largely avoided the topic in recent weeks, and has also canceled his traditional annual press conference on Christmas Eve.

^{Source: APE – MEB, dpa}