Vladimir Putin

Nationalizing the whole oil sector would be a difficult and highly dangerous process, which could have negative consequences not only for the sector but for the whole economy.

I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.

Russia does not and cannot have any political choice but democracy. I want to say, and even stress, that we share those universal democratic principles taken around the whole world.

I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days.

Hitler wanted to destroy Russia- everyone needs to remember how that ended

Recently one of Germany’s famous and popular publications wrote that President Trump is pushing Europe toward Putin. If we take this together with an earlier joke, that Russia influenced elections in the United States, then this all taken together starts sounding pretty funny. We apparently influenced the election of the U.S. President, and then he gifted us Europe. Total nonsense. There’s no way to describe this other than as a joke.

The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.

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.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

The democratic tendency… leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the state and to circumscribe the rights of private persons… often sacrificed without regret and almost always violated without remorse… men become less and less attached to private rights just when it is most necessary to retain and defend what little remains of them.

My English is very bad.

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

We must understand that governments cannot create real jobs. Only entrepreneurs can do that.

I think our Russian Football Union must play an active part in this… and develop a new generation of sportsmen and soccer players.

The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.

If he gave an assignment, he didn’t really care how it was done or who did it or what problems they had. It just had to get done, and that was that.

We need a great president.

The most repressive countries in the Middle East are the ones we support. By comparison to Saudi Arabia, Iran looks like Norway…As far as violence in the Middle East is concerned, the Saudi Arabian [and] UAE actions in Yemen, which we’re supporting, are much worse than anything.

More time and at least a degree of reasonableness in the treatment of the Labour Party. Because the message that we’re putting out on austerity hasn’t fundamentally changed. There’s been an enormous barrier in getting it across, but now I think a lot of people understand what we’re saying and why we’re saying it.

We can realise a lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship to one of enduring co-operation.

I love to go to Washington, if only to be nearer my money.