Russia and the United States are the biggest nuclear powers, this leaves us with an extra special responsibility. By the way, we manage to deal with it and work together in certain fields, particularly in resolving the issue of the Iranian nuclear programme. We worked together and we achieved positive results on the whole.

Prime Minister [Shinzō Abe] and I have spoken a lot, and we said all the right things, in my opinion, about creating an atmosphere of trust and friendship between our nations and peoples.

We have never meddled in the domestic affairs of any state and we never will.

Russia has long recognized the borders of today's Ukraine. By and large, we have completed our talks on the border. Now we have to deal with the demarcation, but this is a technical issue.

Anything that is missing in the implementation of the Minsk Agreement is - without any exception - up to the Kiev central government of Ukraine. You cannot demand something of Moscow that, in fact, the rulers in Kiev have to deliver. The most important aspect is the constitutional reform, Point 11 of the Minsk Agreement.

It is well known, widely known that the US President-elect [Donald Trump] has publicly spoken in favour of normalising Russian-American relations. We cannot but support this. Of course, we understand that it will not be an easy job, taking into account the degree to which Russian-American relations have degraded. But we are ready to cover our part of the way.

If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake.