Russia can fall apart. It's not because of the oil prices ... It's because what sticks a country together is a common interest of people. It has to be economically and socially profitable - beneficial - for people to be together. They should understand how they benefit from a large country. And if they start to feel like a large country is a source of problem, then the country collapses as the Soviet Union collapsed.

I have a group of very loyal people. We are in the minority very much, basically 10 to 15% of the population that supports what we do. It's temporary. I think that the high numbers for Putin, they will pass as soon as economic tensions mount. And then the whole situation will be flipped. It's important not to alienate people, not to receive negative reaction on yourself, but we have to wait a little bit. Bolsheviks in 1914 were a dying sect, the only ones against the war, but just two and a half years later, they came to power.

Putin is not a strategist at all. He has brilliant tactics, but he is a very bad strategist overall. And I think he is acting very opportunistically there, just to play the cards with America. He was very proud of himself when he convinced us to give up on chemical weapons so that it could be played down and prevent an invasion, and that was very helpful for Obama because Obama saved his face and didn't order airstrikes at that very moment. Putin was extremely proud. That's the kind of thing Putin does.

I think that there are excesses that exist in all societies. I won't say it's normal to have them, but it's natural to have them. I'm watching very closely ... what Snowden has done. I don't know him personally. I wanted to talk to him, but all of the security people didn't allow me to. But I think that he took the wrong approach to a very right thing which he was doing. Just the implementation was wrong. There was a clear platform to what he was doing, although of course that there were some mistakes made.

Generally, Putin thinks of himself as Christian. I don't think he is, but he pretends to think that he is. In terms of his ideology he's more like Bush Jr. But he's less ideological. He's thinking more, 'How to stay in power?'

From the point of view of legislation of the Constitution, my mandate has been given by my constituency. So it's only my constituency that can revoke my mandate. So until the next election, nobody is supposed to do anything.

With Tatars, the situation is a little bit more complex. They are geographically very isolated so they need the rest of Russia. When they pump oil, they need pipelines to deliver it so they need those connections. We in Siberia don't need those connections. The only thing which actually sticks us together is the cultural similarities and the relatives that are on both sides of the Ural mountains.