Vladimir Putin

From the beginning, we failed to overcome Europe’s division. The Berlin Wall fell, but invisible walls were moved to the East of Europe. This has led to mutual misunderstandings and assignments of guilt. They are the cause of all crises ever since.

We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

I myself know some people who are gay. We’re on friendly terms. I’m not prejudiced in any way.

No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights.

[on Trump] He is a very bright person, talented without any doubt.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used, not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists.

I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state – a new idea, this – even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms.

We challenge the narrative that only the individual matters, and the collective is irrelevant, instead we say the common good is the aspiration of all of us.

The problem with me is that I am fifty or one hundred years ahead of my time. My speed is very fast. Some ministers have had to drop out of my government because they could not keep up.

[on his SNL performance wearing a MAGA hat] They bullied me backstage. They said don’t go out there with that hat on. They bullied me backstage. They bullied me.

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of ‘brainwashing under freedom’ to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.

In our democracy every young person should have an equal opportunity to obtain a higher education, regardless of his station in life or financial means.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

It is clear to us that we have to defend our interests, and to do so consistently, not boorishly or rudely, in both the sphere of the economy and of defense.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is… not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

I think we should talk about what the objectives of the party are, whether that’s restoring the Clause Four as it was originally written or it’s a different one, but I think we shouldn’t shy away from public participation, public investment in industry, i would want us to have a set of objectives which does include public ownership of some necessary things such as rail.

It’s not radical Islam that worries the US – it’s independence

The news that appears on social media, let’s say on Facebook, is drawn from the major media…The fact remains that the basic source of news, information, opinion and analysis is still the major media.

We Marxists believe that revolution will occur in other countries, as well. But it will occur at a time when it will be considered possible or necessary by revolutionaries of those countries.

I’ve made it clear my views on austerity and I’ve made it very clear my views on the Iraq War. And I promised that I would, and I did, give the apology on the anniversary of Iraq, and I stand by that, because I think it was a catastrophic mistake.

Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level – there’s a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I’m opposed to political fascism, I’m opposed to economic fascism. I think that until major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it’s pointless to talk about democracy.