If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake.

I am sure that, after all, any man in my place should set a positive example for other people.

We have already begun taking concrete steps to change the structure of our economy and, as we have discussed a great deal, to give it a more innovative quality.

Do you think that it is possible to have a dialogue with the representatives of Lugansk and Donetsk if they all are being prosecuted and subject to criminal proceedings? That is exactly why the Minsk Agreements establish to adopt an amnesty law. However, it has not been adopted.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn't recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

We believe we have no territorial problems at all. It is only Japan that believes it has territorial problems with Russia. We are ready to talk about this.

Terrorists are always a threat to someone. If we'll be scared of them, it means they have won. But that doesn't mean we can have a devil-may-care attitude toward this threat. We must do everything to stop these threats and not give the terrorists a single chance to demonstrate their brutality and hatred of mankind.