Vladimir Putin Quotes

This gentleman has taken on the very fashionable theme of fighting corruption and I say again: In order to fight corruption you have to be crystal clear yourself. But there are problems here, and in this regard I unfortunately have a suspicion that this is just a way of getting votes and not a genuine desire to solve the problem.

Economic activity is moving from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean... Russia has a certain natural advantage because it also borders the Pacific Ocean.

This is a region [ Far East] with a substantially developed transport and railroad infrastructure. In recent years we have been actively developing road connection.

Some countries have a parliamentary republic, some are presidential republics and some are still monarchies, but no one sees them as not being democratic. In some countries regional leaders are appointed from the centre and in others they are elected. In Russia, the president is elected through direct secret ballot, and in the United States, the president is elected through a system of electoral colleges.

I hope that there will be no particular need for us to attract external funding. It is worth noting that despite the fact the turnover is smaller now we are still maintaining a trade surplus.

Even if we do not always agree on every aspect, nobody should take this as an excuse to declare us as enemies.

We should find other platforms, other forums for that [foreign policy], and there are plenty of them, including, for example, the UN and the Security Council.

Oil production, energy production are growing, though the latter has gone down by about 1 percent here, I believe... By the way, we occupy the first place in the world in gas export, accounting for 20 percent of the world market. We are also first in the sphere of liquid hydrocarbons export.

Russia is a part of European culture. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy.

The Central Bank should take into account other things as well: the stability of the bank system in the country, the increase or decrease of money supply in the economy, its influence on inflation.

Our common goal should be the development of a system of equal security for all governments. System adequate [to deal with] modern threats, built on regional and global nonaligned bases. Only then can we ensure peace and tranquility in the world.

Absolute trust is something hard to achieve even in a family, and it is much harder to achieve on an international level.

The Chancellor [Angela Merkel] and the European partners would be well-advised to address the problems in eastern Ukraine more thoroughly. Maybe they have too many domestic problems of their own at the moment.

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.

I've repeatedly seen the anti-Russian card played during domestic political campaigns in the States. I think that it's a very short-sighted approach. It seems to me that it doesn't fully meet the level of responsibility that lies on the shoulders of the U.S. I think that all this should be more dignified, calm and more balanced.

We are natural partners [with Japan] in the world and the Far East, but the absence of a peace treaty does not allow us to develop the full range of our relations. Therefore, we will naturally strive to sign this treaty.

Of course, this person is to have the trust of the American people, then he or she would not only have the wish but also the supported political will to implement all these agreements.

As a rule, [populism] is done for the sake of political expediency by those who do not care about the consequences, who do not think even one step ahead, who do not want to think and do not intend to honour their commitments.

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.

The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final.

One has to be insincere and promise something which you cannot fulfill. So you either have to be a fool who does not understand what you are promising, or deliberately be lying.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is controlling this, the sanctions against Iran are lifted - but still the US are working on their missile defense system. What is the point of this?

We negotiated the construction of a gas pipeline system along the bottom of the Black Sea to Bulgaria. We signed certain treaties of a technical nature, contracts for laying the gas pipeline. And then Bulgaria created such conditions that the project's implementation became impossible, which was obviously against its own national interests. The former Bulgarian leadership was, in fact, aware of that and acknowledged it. But we trusted them when we were launching that project. We sustained losses amounting to millions, several million dollars. We would not want to get into such situations.

We conducted talks on border issues with our friends in the People's Republic of China for 40 years. There were also issues related to specific territories.

Anyhow, we obviously understand that, being a United States' ally and having a special relationship with it, the UK in its relations with Russian has to make an allowance for the opinion of its partner - the U.S. We take this reality as a given fact, but let me underscore once again that we will be ready to do as much as Britain will be ready to do in order to resume our mutual cooperation. This does not depend on us.

Syria is already in the grips of a civil war, unfortunately enough, and Egypt is moving in that direction. We would like to see the Egyptian people avoid this fate.

To pay more is the easy way. In fact, the solution possibilities to the problem are many.

You made these things up yourselves and now scare yourselves with them and even use them to plan your prospective policies. These policies have no prospects. The only possible future is in cooperation in all areas, including security issues. What is the major security problem today? Terrorism. There are bombings in Europe, in Paris, in Russia, in Belgium. There is a war in the Middle East. This is the main concern. But no, let us keep speculating on the threat from Russia.

I see the collapse of the Soviet Union as a great tragedy of the XX century.

Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

I can't believe that OMON [Russia's riot police] would hit a girl. I simply can't imagine it.

Now they [NATO and the USA ] are sitting there, and we are talking about all these crises we would otherwise not have. You can also see this striving for an absolute triumph in the American missile defense plans.

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.

I believe that the presidential term should be limited.

I was told that [Japan journalists] wanted to see my dog, Yume. You can see that she is in great shape.

Therefore, I do not think we should go only 60 years back but should look deeper, centuries back. Maybe this will give us [Russia and Japan] an opportunity to look at the future from a more remote perspective.

First, the constitution [of Ukraine] has to be reformed. Only then can confidence building and border security follow.

Personally, I think that children should be left alone, they should be given an opportunity to grow up, to become aware of themselves and decide themselves who they are: men or women, if they want to have a traditional or homosexual marriage.

We see that leaders in Western Europe [there are some debates of course, we also see that and analyse it all] stick to, I cannot say right or wrong ones, it always depends on someone's view, but I think, very pragmatic approaches in addressing economic issues.

My English is very bad.

The path towards a free society has not been simple. There are tragic and glorious pages in our history.

Russia will not take part in any field operations on the territory of Syria or in other states; at least, we do not plan it for now. But we are thinking of how to intensify our work both with President al-Assad and our partners in other countries.

Of course Germany's media are heavily influenced by the country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Russia is a very reliable and big market. I don't remember the figure but, for example, the German machine-building industry has been increasing its supplies to Russia every year. These supplies are huge. Does someone want to discontinue these supplies? We'll buy from somebody else.

I'm proud of Russia, that's true. And we have something to be proud of, but we do not have any obsession with being a superpower in the international arena.

I stress that we unambiguously support strengthening the non-proliferation regime, without any exceptions, on the basis of international law.

There are complicated processes going on in society in the Crimea. There are problems of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukrainian population, the Russian population, the Slavic population in general, but this is Ukraine's domestic political problem.