Russia itself is a European country, and not just because our major political and economic centres are in Europe, but because Russian culture is primarily European culture.

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.

I believe that the 21st century economy is an economy of people, not of factories. The intellectual factor has become increasingly important in the economy, which is why we are planning to focus on providing additional opportunities for people to realise their potential.

However, given the fact that the State has a controlling stake in the company [Rosneft], it might not be the best course of action when one company under State control buys another one fully owned by the State. This is one point.

The sooner the Iraqi people are able to take their country's destiny in their own hands and establish their own control over it and its national resources, the sooner the process of pushing the forces of international terrorism out of Iraq will be able to begin. And the sooner the process of consolidating Iraqi society itself will also be able to begin.

Therefore today we have an absolutely sufficient level of gold and foreign currency reserves in order to ensure economic stability and sustainable foreign trade turnover.

Brazil does have every right to develop its own peaceful nuclear programme.