This is what Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a forum of All-Russia People’s Front in Moscow held on Tuesday. Initially, some 200 billion rubles from this sum of money was allocated to a fund for the dilapidated housing resettlement.
After that, following the sale of Yukos Oil Company’s assets, a number of projects for bridge construction were set up on a basis of these funds. Building of some of the bridges were started as far back as in the Soviet era, but were not completed due to developments in 1990s.
As a reference, Yukos was acquired by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep in the mid 1990s. In October 2003, following the arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky, the company was forcibly broken up for unpaid taxes.