Concerning our possibilities on the international financial markets, the sanctions are severely harming Russia. But the biggest harm is currently caused by the decline of the prices for energy. We suffer dangerous revenue losses in our export of oil and gas, which we can partly compensate for elsewhere. But the whole thing also has a positive side: if you earn so many petrodollars - as we once did - that you can buy anything abroad, this slows down developments in your own country.

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

Absolute trust is something hard to achieve even in a family, and it is much harder to achieve on an international level.

At the request of our Japanese partners, we have reopened these talks [about territories]. What command is given in this case in judo? You probably know better than I do: Yoshi (continue). So we will continue.

The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

It is my greatest desire, I want the people in Russia to be happy and I want our partners around the world to seek to develop relations with Russia.

I insist that people - wherever they live - have their rights and they must be able to fight for them.