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

The Prime Minister [Shinzō Abe] also highlighted the need to address general humanitarian issues. We already mentioned one of these issues: visa-free travel by Japanese citizens to the South Kuril Islands.

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.

They are constantly trying to drive us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we tell it like it is and don't engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally.

Russia is a part of European culture. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy.

A country in which the people are not healthy physically and psychologically, are poorly educated and illiterate, will never rise to the peaks of world civilization.

Whatever we do, all the knowledge, the experience, they stay with us, we carry them on, use them in one way or another.