There are complicated processes going on in society in the Crimea. There are problems of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukrainian population, the Russian population, the Slavic population in general, but this is Ukraine's domestic political problem.

We should find other platforms, other forums for that [foreign policy], and there are plenty of them, including, for example, the UN and the Security Council.

I believe that the G20 should not interfere [foreign policy], because there are other platforms for that.

[Economic restrictions] is one of the elements that is destabilising the world economic order that was at one time created largely by the United States itself at the dawn of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that was later transformed into the World Trade Organisation.

It is a fact that the US defence budget is larger than the defence budgets of all other countries taken together. This is why I understand the US President when he says that his NATO allies should take over part of this burden. It is a pragmatic and understandable approach.

The Soviet Union, and Russia as the successor state to the Soviet Union, is a founding member state of the United Nations and a permanent member of its Security Council.

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.