When Saddam Hussein was eliminated, the Iraqi statehood and thousands of people from the former Baath party were also eliminated. Thousands of Iraqi servicemen, who were part of the state's Sunni elite, found themselves thrown out into the street. No one gave a thought about them, and today they end up in the ISIS army.
Vladimir PutinHowever, it was not us who refused to freeze oil production; our Saudi partners changed their point of view at the last moment and decided to slow down the adoption of this decision. I would like to reiterate our position, it remains the same.
Vladimir PutinIn relations between the states ... the interests of the country should be correlated with the interests of other countries, and compromise is to be found when resolving the most complex issues.
Vladimir PutinMy family suffered very major losses during the Second World War, that's true. In my father's family, there were five brothers. I think four of them died. On my mother's side the picture was pretty much the same. Russia has suffered great losses. And of course we can't forget that.
Vladimir PutinWe have made mistakes! We were too late. If we had presented our national interests more clearly from the beginning, the world would still be in balance today.
Vladimir PutinThere is no need to distract the attention of the community from the essence of the subject substituting it with secondary questions dealing with the search of those who did it [hacker's attacks].
Vladimir PutinIn 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirล Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.
Vladimir Putin