We have established the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union not by force, but through a compromise. It was a challenging, complicated, multi-year process based on agreement, compromise and mutually acceptable conditions in the hope of creating for our economies and for our people better competitive advantages in the world markets and in the world as a whole.

Nobody should pin their hopes on a miracle.

The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final.

Donald Trump is a brilliant and talented person, without a doubt.

We have every reason to say, and I note this with great satisfaction, that a truly friendly relationship has evolved with China, and in many key areas these relations, without any exaggeration, have a strategic character. As we say, the strategic character of privileged partnership.

There are some gestures, of course, that you can only interpret one way, but no one has ever seen those kinds of gestures directed by Obama at me or by me at Obama, and I hope that never happens. Everything else is fantasy.

Over the course of the year 1990, the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had many conversations with President [Mikhail] Gorbachev and other Soviet officials.