One of our objectives today is very important for many people, for millions of people on our planet - it is joining efforts in the fight against terrorism and other similar challenges: countering drug trafficking and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, fighting famine, preserving environment and biodiversity, taking efforts to make the world more predictable, more stable.

Kiev's attempts to exert economic pressure on Donbas (region of east Ukraine) and disrupt its daily life only aggravates the situation. This is a dead-end track, fraught with a big catastrophe.

The last time I was in Japan as President of Russia was 11 years ago, if memory serves. I later visited in my capacity as Prime Minister.

If there were any in China and Russia in this connection, though we both made some compromises. But these were compromises between friendly countries. I think it is almost impossible to achieve such compromise in other ways.

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.

The Crimea is not a disputed territory. Unlike the case of Georgia and South Ossetia, there has been no ethnic conflict there.

I wish that in the course of my visit to places the Prime Minister [Shindzo Abe] calls home, all of a sudden, we would reach a clear understanding on how we can resolve the matters. We will be very glad if that happens. Are there any chances? Perhaps.