Top 693 Quotes & Sayings by Vladimir Putin - Page 4

I read papers, try to watch news programs on television, but, as a rule, recorded. During the day I have no time for that, so I watch something taped. As for the newspapers, I try to get through them every day. Additionally, of course, I look through news bulletins.

We're no longer in the Cold War. Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable.

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.

As regards humanitarian issues and how to handle them, that was the Prime Minister's [Shinz? Abe] initiative. He brought the matter up at our last meeting in Lima and asked me straightforwardly whether we would agree to let Japanese citizens travel on a visa-free basis, resolve the issue in such a way as to enable them to visit the South Kurils, visit their native areas. I said at once that it was quite possible.

Take, for example, Lithuania. Do you know, what was its population in the Soviet times? It was 3.4 mln people. It was a small country, a small republic. And what is it now? I have looked though the recent statistics, today the population of this country is 1.4 mln people. Where are the people? More than half of the citizens have left the country.

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.

There are no Russian units in eastern Ukraine - no special services, no tactical advisors. All this is being done by the local residents, and the proof of that is the fact that those people have literally removed their masks.

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.

Without Russia's contribution, prices would rise even more. Some members of the EU meet 90% of their demands for gas with the help of Russian hydrocarbons and have no complaints so far. Everybody is happy. Russia is a reliable partner and has never failed her partners in Europe, even in the hardest times of its economic development.

Yes, life in Chechnya so far looks more like a life after a natural disaster.

Economic crimes are complex in nature, difficult to untangle, and they must be investigated according to the procedures set by the law.

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.

I think that rather than talking about particular models, of which there could be a huge number, we should talk about basic principles of democracy. After all, even within the West, there is no single standard and single model.

The most important thing is to find collective solutions in diplomacy and I think that is possible.

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.

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.

There is no one else at all who is fighting ISIS on the ground, except for President al-Assad's army.

One of the most important tasks is to broaden the energy supply ... Energy determines today international security and social as well as economic development in many respects. In reality the wellbeing of millions of people is directly dependent in energy security.

We see Serbs as our spiritual brothers. And that is what is at the base of our relations today and in the future.

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.

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 G20 was established as a forum to discuss, first and foremost, world economic issues. If we load it with... Of course, politics affects economic processes, this is obvious, but if we bring some squabbles, or not squabbles, rather, some matters that are really important but relate purely to world politics, we will overload the G20 agenda and instead of addressing such issues as finance, structural economic reforms, tax evasion and so forth, we will engage in endless debates concerning the Syrian crisis or some other global challenges, of which there are many, or the Middle East problem.

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.

The problem of sexual minorities in Russia has been deliberately made controversial in Russia. There is no such problem in Russia.

I hope that being in places from the [Shinzo Abe] Prime Minister's past will motivate us to have a sincere, very practical and, I hope, productive conversation.

I have never changed. I feel as young as I always did and remain close friends with Gerhard Schröder.

Russia always has been, and I hope always will be, one of the leading international sports countries. Our athletes still produce great results in international competition, set new records and win gold medals. Yes, like any country, we might have experienced certain ups and downs with regard to results, but in no way does this cast any doubt on Russia's status as one of the leading countries in sport.

The Russians have turned out to be the largest divided nation in the world nowadays. Is that not a problem?

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.

The centuries-old history and culture of India, majestic architectural monuments and museums of Delhi, Agra and Mumbai have a unique attractive force.

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.

Mohammed bin Salman is deputy Crown Prince, but this is not so important. He is a very active statesman, we have really warm relations. This is a person who knows what he wants and can achieve his goals. At the same time I consider him to be a reliable partner with whom one can negotiate and be sure that agreements with him will be implemented.

It is wrong to make anyone into an enemy; it is wrong to scare the people of one's own country with that enemy and try to rally some allies on that basis.

People in the eastern regions [of Ukaraine] are talking about federalisation, and Kiev has at long last started talking about de-centralisation. Order in the country can only be restored through dialogue and democratic procedures, rather than with the use of armed force, tanks and aircraft.

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...

The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

Easter celebrations are evidence of the increased benign influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional churches in our country on society.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

No matter who uses chemical weapons against people and organisations, the international community must formulate a common policy and find a solution that would make the use of such weapons impossible for anyone.

The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained.

In the near future, despite the development of alternative energy, when you look at the economics and environmental standards, then there's no other source of primary energy in the world than natural gas. Well, perhaps there is nuclear energy but there are also a lot of issues there and there are opponents of nuclear energy. Gas doesn't have those opponents. But there is a country that is, obviously, the world leader in gas reserves. That's our country, the Russian Federation.

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 philosophy of FIFA is to expand world soccer space, to spread out the world football space.

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.

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.

As to our trade and economic relations with China, they are growing more and more diverse each day, something we have worked on for a long time with our partners from China.

President Obama hasn't been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia. And your humble servant hasn't been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either. We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed. But I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

I believe that in fact it would be economically reasonable and logical to reach a compromise [on oil production], I am sure that everybody understands this.

I would like to assure you that there is no organization or any sort of repression against people who don’t agree with our actions, for example in Ukraine, Crimea, or any other external issue, no one from official government organs do this.

Some are addicted to cigarettes, some, God forbid, to drugs, and some become addicted to money. They say that the worst addiction is to power. I have never felt that. I have never been addicted to anything

I do not want to speak about our cooperation with Japan now. Thank God, we have had no such problems there. Nor would we want any to arise in the future. Therefore, everything needs to be pre-calculated, and we need to agree upon everything in advance.

Nowhere is it written that NATO had to accept certain countries. All that would have been required to refrain from doing so was the political will. But people didn't want to.

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.

Speaking seriously, Russia does not want to aggravate relations with anyone. We don't want any tensions. We want a good, friendly partnership with everyone.

The most obvious risk was that the Russian speaking population was threatened and that the threats were absolutely specific and tangible. This is what made Crimean residents, the people who live there, think about their future and ask Russia for help. This is what guided our decision.

Democracy is an internal subject of the developing society. There are fundamentals of democracy, and they should be understood universally in different countries.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a grave social situation in Russia; our social protection system was destroyed; numerous problems emerged which we have not been able to cope with effectively yet, to get rid of them, in health, sports development.

As for that footage, video footage showing the dead children allegedly killed in the chemical attack, it is horrible. The question is only who did it and what they did, and who is responsible for this. These pictures do not answer the questions I have just posed. There is an opinion that it's a compilation by these very rebels, who are connected with al-Qaida and who were always distinguished by exceptional brutality.

When we talk about the Far East we usually mean the Far East itself, including Primorye Territory, Khabarovsk Territory, Kamchatka, and Chukotka, as well as Eastern Siberia. All this area contains tremendous resources, including oil and gas, 90 percent of Russian tin, 30 percent of Russian gold, 35 percent of forest, 70 percent of Russia's fish is harvested in the local waters.