After Trump's election victory, I explained why there would be no friendship between Putin and Trump. The contradictions between the systems are too great. And Putin needs an enemy. He wants to be the leader of the anti-American, anti-European world. And given that he cannot be friends with their heads of state and government, he instead needs to generate scandals and resistance.

Consistency for me is everything.

Nobody wants a political prisoner, but a political emigrant is no problem.

I'm only sort of a politician.

President Putin will run again in the 2018 election. He wants to be the czar of this new Russian empire that he is rebuilding. I think he is really obsessed with the idea.

Foreign countries should impose sanctions against Putin's corrupt network.

We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet.