People in Russia say that those who do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those that do regret it have no brain.

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

The Central Bank is constantly purchasing, purchasing and selling and vice versa - this is their job.

Russians have different far lofty ambitions; more of a spiritual kind. It's more about your relationship with God .

We have established the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union not by force, but through a compromise. It was a challenging, complicated, multi-year process based on agreement, compromise and mutually acceptable conditions in the hope of creating for our economies and for our people better competitive advantages in the world markets and in the world as a whole.

Sanctions have nothing to do with this [relations with the People's Republic of China]. The decline in our mutual trade has objective causes, which are the energy prices and the exchange rate difference. But the physical volumes have not decreased, quite the opposite actually. They are growing.

Speaking seriously, Russia does not want to aggravate relations with anyone. We don't want any tensions. We want a good, friendly partnership with everyone.