International terrorists who pursue completely mad objectives such as establishing a world caliphate or something of the sort, are quite adept at disguising their real aims as a struggle for independence in Chechnya.

It is a major world power, and today it is an economic and military leader - no doubt about it. That is why America has a strong influence on the situation in the world in general.

There are also other areas. For example, culture. This is extremely important. We keep revisiting sport, judo, because I practice it, but other than that, there is also culture. Every year events that are in some way or other related to Russia take place in Japan.

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.

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.

In 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirō Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.

The aviation industry, including combat air force, has been traditionally developing here. It is the Russian Far East where the SU aircraft, which are well known worldwide, are manufactured.