The main priority is not to allow any steps backwards, to maintain stability. Today we need people known as heavyweights. I consider the experience and weight of Chernomyrdin essential,
It is not right for us to think about successors. Kings have successors but we don't. It is the people that choose.
A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country.
I ask you to forgive me for not fulfilling some hopes of those people who believed that we would be able to jump from the totalitarian past into a bright, rich and civilized future in one go.
There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.
It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.
It must include competent, fresh people with initiative.
The people have already rid themselves of the fear they had several years ago. I call on my compatriots to begin constructive work in order to revive and renew Russia in the name of national unity.