America's creative approach to solving the problems the country is faced with, its openness and open-mindedness which make it possible to unleash the potential of the people. I believe that largely due to these qualities America has made such tremendous strides in its development.

I'm eternally grateful to fate and the citizens of Russia that they've trusted me to be the head of the Russian government.

We should all be aware of the fact that when revolutionary - not evolutionary - changes come, things can get even worse. The intelligentsia should be aware of this. And it is the intelligentsia specifically that should keep this in mind and prevent society from radical steps and revolutions of all kinds. We've had enough of it. We've seen so many revolutions and wars. We need decades of calm and harmonious development.

In the area of international security, taking into account that the United States and Russia are the largest nuclear powers: We are ready to jointly work to strengthen the non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. We are ready to work together, and much closer than before, on the problem of fighting terrorism, international terrorism, and here we certainly have vast opportunities.

In order to preserve a balance, while we aren't planning to build a missile defence of our own, as it's very expensive and its efficiency is not quite clear yet, we have to develop offensive strike systems. They [U.S.] should give us all the information about the missile defence, and we will be ready then to provide some information about offensive weapons.

If I said that oil production would collapse I was wrong.

I believe the U.S. already understands and will understand more and more that only a strong Russia will respond to the genuine interests of the United States.