I am very grateful to our people who appreciate my work and for their support, as without that support it would have been impossible to get anything done.

We're no longer in the Cold War. Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable.

Some Western politicians are already threatening us with not just sanctions, but also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front. I would like to know what it is they have in mind exactly: action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors', or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public discontent? We consider such statements irresponsible and clearly aggressive in tone, and we will respond to them accordingly.

Without the values at the core of Christianity and other world religions, without moral norms that have been shaped over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. One must respect every minority’s right to be different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.

I see that not everyone in the West has understood that the Soviet Union has disappeared from the political map of the world and that a new country has emerged with new humanist and ideological principles at the foundation of its existence.

This, for instance, is what Egon Bahr said on June 26, 1990: "If we do not now undertake clear steps to prevent a division of Europe, this will lead to Russia's isolation."Bahr, a wise man, had a very concrete suggestion as to how this danger could be averted.

I can't believe that OMON [Russia's riot police] would hit a girl. I simply can't imagine it.