Crimea has always been and remains Russian, as well as Ukrainian, Crimean-Tatar, Greek (after all, there are Greeks living there) and German - and it will be home to all of those peoples. As for state affiliation, the people living in Crimea made their choice; it should be treated with respect, and Russia cannot do otherwise. I hope that our neighbouring and distant partners will ultimately treat this the same way, since in this case, the highest criteria used to establish the truth can only be the opinion of the people themselves.

Our microeconomic indicators are stable and it gives me reason to believe that we will calmly and steadily pass this uneasy period in our economy, which has already no doubt adapted to the current situation.

If we had joined efforts some time ago [with U.S], we could have avoided many problems the world is facing now, I believe.

We have created stability, which is a necessary condition for development. But I can't call this system authoritarian.

At any rate, those problems [ non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction ] would not be so acute, with numerous terror attacks and victims of those attacks in many areas of the world - in Europe and in the United States. We also never would have had such an urgent problem with refugees, I have no doubt about it.

I hope that the responsible figures in the Ukrainian leadership will not hinder soldiers in the Ukrainian army from putting down their weapons.

There are complicated processes going on in society in the Crimea. There are problems of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukrainian population, the Russian population, the Slavic population in general, but this is Ukraine's domestic political problem.