I would like to repeat: I know absolutely nothing about [hacker's attacks], and Russia has never done anything like this at the State level.
We do believe the current Ukrainian authorities are illegitimate. They cannot be legitimate as they do not have a national mandate for running the country, which speaks for itself. At the same time, we do not refuse to deal with them. We stay in touch at the ministerial level.
What happened in Ukraine? The coup d'état in Ukraine has led to a civil war, because, yes, let's say, many Ukrainians no longer trusted President Yanukovych. However, they should have legitimately come to the polls and voted for another head of state instead of staging a coup d'état. And after the coup d'état took place, someone supported it, someone was satisfied with it, while others were not. And those who did not like it were treated from the position of force. And that led to a civil war.
I believe that a country, Russia in this case, which can defend the honour and dignity of its citizens, protect their lives, and fulfill its international legal commitments under the peacekeeping mandate, will not find itself in isolation, no matter what our partners in Europe or the United States may think, expressing their bloc mentality.
The problem of sexual minorities in Russia has been deliberately made controversial in Russia. There is no such problem in Russia.
The Baltic republics have invented something totally new. Do you know what? They use the word 'non-citizens' for people who have been living for decades in the territory of Baltic states and have been deprived of a number of political rights. They cannot participate in the election campaigns; they have limited political and social rights. Everybody keeps quiet about it, as if this is the way it should be. Of course, this cannot but cause a certain reaction.
There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.
Each country has its own particular features, its own traditions that find their reflection today and will find it in future. There are such traditions in Russia but it is not a question of a strong figure, although a strong figure is needed in power, it is a question of what is implied by this term. It is one thing if it is a person with dictatorial tendencies. But if it is a fair leader, who acts within the law and in the interests of a vast majority of society, who acts coherently and is guided by principles, it is a completely different matter.
Democracy means the power of the people and the possibility of influencing the governing parties. Russia had had enough experience with a one-party-system - we will not go back there.
There are a lot of hackers today, you know, and they perform their work in such a filigreed and delicate manner and they can show their "tracks" anywhere and anytime. It may not even be a track; they can cover their activity so that it looks like hackers operating from other territories, from other countries. It is hard to check this activity, maybe not even possible. Anyway, we do not do that at the national level.
I have criticized foreign policy, but that does not mean that we should agree with everything. Indeed, we criticize a lot of things, we think that our partners make many mistakes [may be we make mistakes too, no one is immune to making mistakes], but as for the economy, I repeat that, in my opinion, the European Commission and the leading European economies are acting very pragmatically and are on the right path.
One must not allow oneself to skid down to isolationism and unbridled economic egoism. ... The second possible mistake would be excessive interference into the economic life of the country. And the absolute faith into the all-mightiness of the state.
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.
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.
The centuries-old history and culture of India, majestic architectural monuments and museums of Delhi, Agra and Mumbai have a unique attractive force.
I'm not really saddened that [Pussy Riot] ended up in jail, though there is nothing good in that. What saddens me is that they took things to such a level, here, from my point of view, that they degraded the dignity of women.
The most important thing is to find collective solutions in diplomacy and I think that is possible.
The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.
The constitutional reform is supposed to give autonomy to eastern Ukraine and to be adopted by the end of 2015. This has not happened, and the year is over. That's not Russia's fault.
It is very difficult to enter a single currency zone having fairly weak economic parameters and maintain a favourable state of the economy, not to mention positive growth rates. We have witnessed it not only in Europe, but for example in Argentina (nearly 10 years ago or more), when they tied the national currency to the dollar and later they did not know what to do about it.
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.
I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones. These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.
The Russians have turned out to be the largest divided nation in the world nowadays. Is that not a problem?
Just take Kosovo: back then, UN bodies decided that Kosovo should become independent of Serbia and that the interests of Serbia's central government had to be subordinated. You can read that in all the records, also in the German ones.
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...
![I would like to repeat: I know absolutely nothing about [hacker's attacks], and Russia has never done anything like this at the State level.](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/vladimir-putin/i-would-like-to-repeat-i-know-absolutely-nothing-about-hackers-attacks-and-russia-has-never-done-anything-like-this.jpg)