How was Kosovo recognized? They forgot about the territorial integrity of a state, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which they had themselves adopted and supported. Why could it have been done there, but not in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Why not?

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.

Back in 2007, many people criticized me for my talk at the Munich Security Conference. But what did I say there? I merely pointed out that the former NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner had guaranteed that NATO would not expand eastwards after the fall of the Wall.

Sanctions have nothing to do with this [relations with the People's Republic of China]. The decline in our mutual trade has objective causes, which are the energy prices and the exchange rate difference. But the physical volumes have not decreased, quite the opposite actually. They are growing.

The constitutional reform is supposed to give autonomy to eastern Ukraine and to be adopted by the end of 2015. This has not happened, and the year is over. That's not Russia's fault.

Everything will probably never be Ok. But we have to try for it.

Our trend in the privatization process and gradual withdrawal of the state from certain assets remains unchanged.