I will not meddle in America's internal political squabbles.

Stalinism is linked with a cult of personality and massive violations of the law, with repression and camps. There is nothing like that in Russia and, I hope, will never again be...

When you start to meet with ordinary people you understand that a Russian person, really any person from Russia, a Tatar, a Mordvin, a Chechen, a Dagestani, they are very open people, even a little naive. But there's one defining trait that probably all peoples have, although it comes out especially strongly in us. That's a drive toward fairness. It's one of the dominating, I think, traits in the mentality of a person from Russia, a Russian person.

We have good joint projects in the helicopter and aircraft manufacturing industry. We are considering cooperation and are actively cooperating in space. There are good prospects there [with China].

Strictly speaking, Rosneft is not a company. Let us not forget that BP has a stake in Rosneft and BP is a British company.

There can be no democracy without observing the law and everyone must observe it - that is the most basic and important thing that we all should remember.

[Egon] Bahr even said: If Russia agreed to the NATO expansion, he would never come to Moscow again.