You have made a very good point: both the Prime Minister [Shindzo Abe] and I enjoy a fairly high level of trust among the citizens of our countries.

There is something that I have in common with every citizen of Russia, the love for our motherland.

There is no other way to settle the Syrian conflict other than by strengthening the existing legitimate government agencies, support them in their fight against terrorism and, of course, at the same time encourage them to start a positive dialogue with the "healthy" part of the opposition and launch political transformations.

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.

I think that rather than talking about particular models, of which there could be a huge number, we should talk about basic principles of democracy. After all, even within the West, there is no single standard and single model.

I have criticized foreign policy, but that does not mean that we should agree with everything. Indeed, we criticize a lot of things, we think that our partners make many mistakes [may be we make mistakes too, no one is immune to making mistakes], but as for the economy, I repeat that, in my opinion, the European Commission and the leading European economies are acting very pragmatically and are on the right path.

There is no one else at all who is fighting ISIS on the ground, except for President al-Assad's army.