The fight against terrorism is something very real and practical for us. This is a fight to preserve our territorial integrity, and in this sense we need to have the instruments and create an environment in Russia that would make it impossible for the international terrorist organisations to achieve the aims they have set for themselves here.

Of course one always has to follow international law. This was also the case in Crimea. According to the Charter of the United Nations, every people has the right to self-determination.

We in Russia have always considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. I still think so.

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.

At the request of my Japanese colleagues, in 2000 we revisited the possibility of signing a peace treaty based on the 1956 agreement.

Of course, nobody does [want another Cuban Missile Crisis].

Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interests of itself and interests of its people - of its citizens. This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before.