The path towards a free society has not been simple. There are tragic and glorious pages in our history.

Nuclear weapons and other weapons are the means to protect our sovereignty and legitimate interests, not the means to behave aggressively or to fulfil some non-existent imperial ambitions.

There are also other areas. For example, culture. This is extremely important. We keep revisiting sport, judo, because I practice it, but other than that, there is also culture. Every year events that are in some way or other related to Russia take place in Japan.

I would like to say, you know, that, unfortunately, we have many unresolved problems. But a great number of people in Russia know Japan and love Japan, and I am sure that eventually we will resolve all our problems.

Looking at the map of the Russian Federation, one can see a country covering mostly northern areas; today more than 70 percent of our territory is or can be referred to as northern, if not the Far North. We have a rather small warm Black sea strip in the South and - to tell the truth - quite a few regions with a hospitable warm climate.

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.

In other words, we do not have to be obsessed with privatizing immediately and at any cost. No, we will not do it at any cost. We will do it in a way that ensures maximum benefit for the Russian state and the Russian economy.