I guess I can call myself a pragmatist with a conservative perspective. It would be hard for me to explain this, but I always take realities of today, lessons from the distant and recent past into consideration.

We are ready to meet [with Donald Trump] at any time, this is no problem for us, but I believe we should be patient and wait for the complicated process of forming the new administration to be complete.

The level of our political trust [with China] is also very high. We have similar positions on major international issues or even, as diplomats say, our views are identical. We often have shared positions on key issues of the modern international agenda.

It is simply that we treat Japanese history, the history of the Japanese people and its unique culture with greater respect and interest. This generates enormous interest in Russia!

We're no longer in the Cold War. Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable.

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.

This, for instance, is what Egon Bahr said on June 26, 1990: "If we do not now undertake clear steps to prevent a division of Europe, this will lead to Russia's isolation."Bahr, a wise man, had a very concrete suggestion as to how this danger could be averted.