I did not know that [ the Chancellor Angela Merkel is a bit frightened of dogs]. I wanted to make her happy. When I learned that she does not like dogs, I apologized, of course.

Kiev's attempts to exert economic pressure on Donbas (region of east Ukraine) and disrupt its daily life only aggravates the situation. This is a dead-end track, fraught with a big catastrophe.

It is my greatest desire, I want the people in Russia to be happy and I want our partners around the world to seek to develop relations with Russia.

The people who lost the elections do not want to admit that they really lost, that the one who won was closer to the people and better understood what ordinary voters want. They are absolutely reluctant to admit this, and prefer deluding themselves and others into thinking it was not their fault, that their policy was correct, they did all the right things, but someone from the outside thwarted them. But it was not so. They just lost and they have to admit it.

Russians have different far lofty ambitions; more of a spiritual kind. It's more about your relationship with God .

If we do it, if we work to achieve all this [cultural exchange with Japan], we can and should talk about joint efforts toward ensuring international security, and not only in the Far East.

Russia will not soon become, if it ever becomes, a second copy of the United States or England - where liberal value have deep historic roots.