Vladimir Putin

The Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000 became a truly historic step. The developments in the first decade of the 21 century confirmed that it was a particularly significant and timely step.

In almost any country, probably in Russia in particular, it’s fashionable to criticise people in power. If you come out in support of someone like me, you’re going to be accused of trying to ingratiate yourself.

Why does the world dislike Russia? I do not think that we are unloved or considered to be ignorant.

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.

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.

Bike is the most democratic transport vehicle. Bike is the most daring, challenging as it gives its owner the tempting feeling of freedom, that is why one can say without any exaggeration, bike is a symbol of freedom.

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.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

Throughout the two leadership campaigns I read quite a lot of Oscar Wilde.

My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

…if you ask me whether or not I’m an atheist, I wouldn’t even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I’m supposed not to believe in, and I’ve never seen an explanation.

I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s won a poll.

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a ‘peace conference’, you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.

There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.

If wall street can borrow money at 0.75% interest, so can college students. We need to stop treating students as profit centers.

Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous.

One positive development might be the infrastructure program that Trump has promised while (along with much reporting and commentary) concealing the fact that it is essentially the Obama stimulus program that would have been of great benefit to the economy and to the society generally, but was killed by the Republican Congress on the pretext that it would explode the deficit..

[on Trump] This guy’s shame has no limits.

Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes.