We had a very good situation in 2005. The common budget had a volume of 80 billion dollars per year. Thousands of jobs were created in Germany by Russian investments. At the same time, a large number of German companies invested in Russia. There were countless cultural and social contacts.
Vladimir PutinThere are a lot of hackers today, you know, and they perform their work in such a filigreed and delicate manner and they can show their "tracks" anywhere and anytime. It may not even be a track; they can cover their activity so that it looks like hackers operating from other territories, from other countries. It is hard to check this activity, maybe not even possible. Anyway, we do not do that at the national level.
Vladimir PutinWe are actively preparing a partial privatization of Rosneft itself. It is the best proof that our major plans have remained unchanged. Another example would be one of the largest Russian diamond mining companies in the world. We are privatizing part of our stake in that as well.
Vladimir PutinBritain is leaving and has de facto left the European Union; however, it has not withdrawn from its special relationship with the United States and I believe that the UK's relations with Russia depend on Britain's special relationship with the United States rather than on its presence in or absence from the European Union.
Vladimir PutinI always had a problem when someone was trying to place sport in social and political context. Sport is a separate and unique kind of human activity, which functions under its own rules and principles. It has nothing to do with the political agenda, and neither it should. When politics interferes with sport, unjust things happen.
Vladimir Putin