You know every stage of your life has an impact on you.

The fact that the union of different nationalities and denominations resulted from the liberation, this is particularly symbolic and important for our multinational country, As long as we feel this unity inside us, Russia will be invincible.

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

I would like to assure you that there is no organization or any sort of repression against people who don’t agree with our actions, for example in Ukraine, Crimea, or any other external issue, no one from official government organs do this.

There are also other areas. For example, culture. This is extremely important. We keep revisiting sport, judo, because I practice it, but other than that, there is also culture. Every year events that are in some way or other related to Russia take place in Japan.

The issues of political nature should be solved in any country, including in Syria, primarily by its people.

I do not even know where Bill Clinton delivered his speech and I know nothing about any funds. Both parties simply use it as a tool in their internal political contention, and I am sure it is a bad thing. But again, we welcome the fact that somebody expresses readiness to work with Russia whatever the name of that person.