We know that the governments in most of the successor states formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union are replaced through a process of regular elections.

I wouldn't overestimate the importance of my popularity in the country and abroad but at the end of the day it's not as important because I believe that my presence here could make some difference and it could encourage people.

Everyone is concerned about his niche, his name, and wants to adapt the concept to so-called national characteristics. But at the end of the day, it's all the same.

Our skin, our borders, all seem petty compared to alien races and the scale of galaxies. Nobody in the Star Wars universe cares about white or black humans, it seems, and what meaning could physical appearance possibly have when there are sentient beings that look like lobsters or like Jabba the Hutt? Unfortunately, in the real world, such hopeful sentiments are regularly refuted by our stubborn insistence on always finding someone to discriminate against.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice.

There is no doubt that [Vladimir] Putin is responsible for this crime, whether or not he gave the order to commit the murder [of Boris Nemtsov] himself. Putin created the conditions and atmosphere that have made this kind of thing possible.

Vladimir Putin has this animalistic instinct of all dictators: He smells weakness. To quote Winston Churchill's definition of appeasement: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."