At least Germany and France have recently criticized that the Ukrainian central government has limited certain parts of the autonomy regulations to three years. They were supposed to last permanently.

There are also fundamental issues related to what the current leader, President [Barack] Obama, said. I am referring to his idea about American exceptionalism. I am skeptical about this idea.

Nothing matters for a drastic change in Ukraine more than political transformations.

They are constantly trying to drive us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we tell it like it is and don't engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally.

I have heard this a thousand times. Of course every state has the right to organize its security the way it deems appropriate. But the states that were already in NATO, the member states, could also have followed their own interests - and abstained from an expansion to the east.

We in Russia have always considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. I still think so.

Russia will not soon become, if it ever becomes, a second copy of the United States or England - where liberal value have deep historic roots.