Vladimir Putin Quotes

Honestly, I do not even know whether this is on the visit itinerary, but if there is time, I would be pleased to go to Kodokan. For anyone interested in judo, who loves judo, Kodokan is a special place.

I do not think I have the right to determine the political future of Syria, be it with or without al-Assad. This is for the Syrians themselves to decide. Nobody has the right to claim the rights that belong to the people of another country.

The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained.

I have a huge interest in Japan, which is well known, including its history and culture, and so it will be very interesting for me to see and learn more about Japan.

The US tactical nuclear weapons are in Europe, let us not forget this. Does it mean that the US has occupied Germany or that the US never stopped the occupation after World War II and only transformed the occupation troops into the NATO forces?

It is well known that homosexuality is a criminal offense in the United States, in four US states. If it is good or bad, we know the decision of the Constitutional Court, but this problem has not been dealt with yet, it is still being addressed by the legislation of the United States. This is not the case in Russia.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used, not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists.

The level of our political trust [with China] is also very high. We have similar positions on major international issues or even, as diplomats say, our views are identical. We often have shared positions on key issues of the modern international agenda.

We are marking the anniversary of the Arctic convoys.We really do consider members of the Arctic convoy to be heroes. This is true. I am not saying this as a fashion of speech.

Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers.

If one looks at the map of the world, it's difficult to find Iraq, and one would think it rather easy to subdue such a small country.

I'm convinced that democracy cannot be exported from one country to another, like you cannot expert revolutions, ideology.

There is no need to distract the attention of the community from the essence of the subject substituting it with secondary questions dealing with the search of those who did it [hacker's attacks].

It is no accident that I mention our American friends, as they are always influencing our relations with our neighbors either directly or behind the scenes. Sometimes you don't even know who to talk to - the governments of certain countries or directly to their American patrons.

Europeans are dying out. Don't you understand that? And same-sex marriages don't produce children. Do you want to survive by drawing migrants? But society cannot adapt so many migrants.

Equipping one side of an ethnic conflict and then prodding it to resolve its ethnic problems by force of arms is a very bad policy.

Not all G8 members take the view that chemical weapons were in fact used by the Syrian Army. Some actually agree with us that there is no proof.

I believe there are a lot of questions today that require expert analysis by various agencies: political agencies, foreign ministries, economic agencies and security agencies. We need to assess everything and understand what we can agree on and what the implications will be both for Japan and for Russia so that both the Russian people and the Japanese people come to the conclusion that these compromise solutions are acceptable and are in our countries' interests.

I don’t regret anything. I did everything absolutely correctly.

The issues of political nature should be solved in any country, including in Syria, primarily by its people.

When we talk about the Far East we usually mean the Far East itself, including Primorye Territory, Khabarovsk Territory, Kamchatka, and Chukotka, as well as Eastern Siberia. All this area contains tremendous resources, including oil and gas, 90 percent of Russian tin, 30 percent of Russian gold, 35 percent of forest, 70 percent of Russia's fish is harvested in the local waters.

Democracy is an internal subject of the developing society. There are fundamentals of democracy, and they should be understood universally in different countries.

I have never changed. I feel as young as I always did and remain close friends with Gerhard Schröder.

The Far East is of particular significance for us in terms of this region's priority development. Over the last few years, let us say even over the last decades, we were faced with many problems here. We paid little attention to this territory although it deserves a lot more of it, because it concentrates great wealth as well as opportunities for Russia's future development.

In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter.

Hitler wanted to destroy Russia- everyone needs to remember how that ended

Here is an example: while resolving current issues, our American colleagues made a proposal on the Syrian settlement but then suddenly declared at the UN that they were not going to discuss anything with us. It is necessary to understand what people want in one department versus another department of the United States. Do they have a common position? And this happened many times on very many areas of our cooperation.

We have very close humanitarian contacts [with China], wide-ranging youth exchanges, educational and regional contacts, and all of them continue to develop.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn't recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

There is something that I have in common with every citizen of Russia, the love for our motherland.

I do not want to speak about our cooperation with Japan now. Thank God, we have had no such problems there. Nor would we want any to arise in the future. Therefore, everything needs to be pre-calculated, and we need to agree upon everything in advance.

Radicals can be found in any environment.

Economic crimes are complex in nature, difficult to untangle, and they must be investigated according to the procedures set by the law.

I repeat that, in my opinion, the European Commission and the leading European economies are acting very pragmatically and are on the right path.

It has nothing to do with any kind of exchange or sale [of Kuril island to Japan]. It is about the search for a solution when neither party would be at a disadvantage, when neither party would perceive itself as conquered or defeated.

Under our regional cooperation projects, we are building roads and bridges. The scope of regional cooperation [with China] is constantly growing.

I believe it is no secret that I like Japan very much - Japanese culture, sport, including judo, but it will not offend anyone if I say that I like Russia even more.

Kodokan is, to a large degree, a trendsetter in the sport. This school trained outstanding masters and is a kind of Mecca for all judokas. Certainly, I would be pleased to visit, if time permits.

I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton is focusing on a different part of the voters trying to influence them in her own way as well; so they attack each other [with Donald Trump].

I hope that being in places from the [Shinzo Abe] Prime Minister's past will motivate us to have a sincere, very practical and, I hope, productive conversation.

The point is that in any country, including the United States, may be in the United States even more often than in any other country, foreign policy is used for internal political struggle.

It is true that the role of the state in the Russian economy may be too big today, but from the fiscal standpoint, it is not always practical to do this in a falling market.

We believe we have no territorial problems at all. It is only Japan that believes it has territorial problems with Russia. We are ready to talk about this.

If anybody,wants to get rid of us, then this is a different approach. However, we will get over it; you never know who is going to lose more with such an approach.

In the near future, despite the development of alternative energy, when you look at the economics and environmental standards, then there's no other source of primary energy in the world than natural gas. Well, perhaps there is nuclear energy but there are also a lot of issues there and there are opponents of nuclear energy. Gas doesn't have those opponents. But there is a country that is, obviously, the world leader in gas reserves. That's our country, the Russian Federation.

Life would be boring without gossip.

The sanctions may be imposed only by the decision of the UN Security Council. A unilateral imposition of sanctions is a violation of international law.