I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. 'Superpower' is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?

As for the President-elect [Donald Trump], he has his own views on things, and this is also fairly natural.

We still have a great amount of work to do in social development, including resolving one of the biggest challenges we face in this area, namely, reducing the gap between high-income earners and people, citizens of our country, who are still living on very modest means indeed. But we cannot, of course, adopt the solution used 80 years ago and simply confiscate the riches of some to redistribute among others. We will use completely different means to resolve this problem, namely, we will ensure good economic growth.

The sanctions may be imposed only by the decision of the UN Security Council. A unilateral imposition of sanctions is a violation of international law.

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.

I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. 'Superpower' is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?

Though we still come first in the sphere of gas export, national production has diminished due to the increasing volumes of hydrogenation for the electric power industry and therefore there is a lower need for gas at thermal power plants.