Personally, I think that children should be left alone, they should be given an opportunity to grow up, to become aware of themselves and decide themselves who they are: men or women, if they want to have a traditional or homosexual marriage.

Somebody is always suspecting Russia of having some ambitions, there are always those who are trying to misinterpret us or keep something back.

Stalinism is linked with a cult of personality and massive violations of the law, with repression and camps. There is nothing like that in Russia and, I hope, will never again be...

There is progress in the sense that the Prime Minister [Shinzō Abe] has proposed, outlined, as it were, directions for movement toward a peace treaty and the resolution of issues related to territorial problems. Now, what did he propose? He proposed promoting an environment of trust and cooperation. I believe it is even hard to imagine that it can be any different, that we can agree to sign the documents that we are talking about without trusting each other or without cooperation. That is simply impossible even to imagine.

I do not remember when I said this [oil production would collapse ], maybe in the heat of the moment, but I do not think I even said it, but I may just not remember it. I was saying that at a certain level of oil prices new deposits will not be explored. That is what is actually happening. However, surprisingly, our oil and gas workers [mainly oilmen] continue to invest.

I repeat that, in my opinion, the European Commission and the leading European economies are acting very pragmatically and are on the right path.

The problem of sexual minorities in Russia has been deliberately made controversial in Russia. There is no such problem in Russia.