At any rate, those problems [ non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction ] would not be so acute, with numerous terror attacks and victims of those attacks in many areas of the world - in Europe and in the United States. We also never would have had such an urgent problem with refugees, I have no doubt about it.

There is nothing in common between al-Assad and ISIS, they fight against each other.

Maybe they have nothing else to do in America but to talk about me.

Japan has joined the sanctions against the Russian Federation. How are we going to further economic relations on a new and much higher basis, at a higher level under the sanctions regime?

Our foreign ministries will simply need to sort out some purely technical matters. I see no political restraints here. The same applies to economic matters. We, on our part, are ready. However, let me repeat once again, given that Japan has joined the anti-Russian sanctions, how ready is Japan and how can it do that without breaching its commitments to its allies? We do not know the answer. Only Japan itself knows the answer.

Life would be boring without gossip.

Next year [2017], we are going to hold a series of events there that we would like to call Russian Seasons [in Japan]. Over 40 different activities - and what is more, in different cities.