Our government has an anti-crisis plan. It includes a number of measures, and many of them—most, in fact—involve handing out money. Help these people, subsidize those. Throw some money in here, pay for something there—naturally, an anti-crisis plan is supposed to provide for that.
In 2015, this plan was implemented in one way or another, and the money was spent. And now they have come to the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) to report on the results. 1,508 pages. But you won’t be able to see how the money was spent: all such information is contained in a separate appendix marked “For Official Use Only.”
Vedomosti asked why and received a brilliant explanation:
And really, why not? We can, after all.
Modern English has an excellent, if vulgar, idiom that perfectly captures the approach of the Russian government. Officials could simply answer journalists and citizens in English like this—after all, it is the international language: