Sanctions against such country as Russia are unlikely to be effective.

I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker's family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens.

We see Serbs as our spiritual brothers. And that is what is at the base of our relations today and in the future.

Our agreements on creating the conditions for preparing a peace treaty [with Japan] should be rooted in this trust. This may be achieved, for example, by large-scale economic activities that will also cover the Kuril Islands. It may be achieved by solving purely humanitarian issues, for instance, unhindered visa-free travel by former residents of the Southern Kuril Islands to where they used to live: visiting cemeteries, native places and so on.

There is also a huge potential for developing the aviation and space industries. As you might have noticed we have launched a new Russian spaceport in one of the Far Eastern regions.

The participants expressed anxiety about the problems the Defense Ministry had been meeting in realizing its plans for future development.

In the referendum - which was still decided to take place by the Crimea's old parliament - the majority of citizens voted for belonging to Russia. This is democracy, the people's will.