Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.

Another point is that ultimately, as far as the budget is concerned, of major importance is who offers more money during the bidding that must be organized as a part of the privatization process. In this sense, we cannot discriminate against any market participants, not one of them, but this is not relevant at the moment, as the Government has decided to postpone the privatization of Bashneft.

In order to preserve a balance, while we aren't planning to build a missile defence of our own, as it's very expensive and its efficiency is not quite clear yet, we have to develop offensive strike systems. They [U.S.] should give us all the information about the missile defence, and we will be ready then to provide some information about offensive weapons.

We will work with any Administration and with any President in whom the American people have placed their trust. That is, of course, if they wish to cooperate with Russia.

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

After the demise of the Soviet Union, we had many problems of our own for which no one was responsible but ourselves: the economic downfall, the collapse of the welfare system, the separatism, and of course the terror attacks that shook our country. In this respect, we do not have to look for guilty parties abroad.

Now we are talking about concluding a free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Council, recently established in the post-Soviet space, and China. A similar agreement was concluded a short time ago with Vietnam. Then, we will coordinate, at least we are ready to do this, the Chinese concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt with our newly-created regional organisation. So, do you understand how diverse, multi-faceted and deep Russian-Chinese ties have become over the last couple of decades? And we resolved the border issue.