Vladimir Putin Mean Quotations

Terrorists are always a threat to someone. If we'll be scared of them, it means they have won.

Opposition can be useful. Every opposition movement is good and useful if it acts within the law... If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of the majority. That's the way it's done in the U.S. and that's the way it's done in Russia.

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.

I'm an adult and I know what power means in the modern world. In the modern world, power is mainly defined by such factors as the economy, defence and cultural influence. I believe that in terms of defence, Russia is without any doubt one of the leaders because we are a nuclear power and our nuclear weapons are perhaps the best in the world.

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.

We still have a great amount of work to do in social development, including resolving one of the biggest challenges we face in this area, namely, reducing the gap between high-income earners and people, citizens of our country, who are still living on very modest means indeed. But we cannot, of course, adopt the solution used 80 years ago and simply confiscate the riches of some to redistribute among others. We will use completely different means to resolve this problem, namely, we will ensure good economic growth.

Terrorists are always a threat to someone. If we're scared of them, it means they have won. But that doesn't mean we can have a devil-may-care attitude toward this threat. We must do everything to stop these threats and not give the terrorists a single chance to demonstrate their brutality and hatred of mankind.

Nuclear weapons and other weapons are the means to protect our sovereignty and legitimate interests, not the means to behave aggressively or to fulfil some non-existent imperial ambitions.

Work is already underway today on creating unique high-precision weapons systems and manoeuvrable combat units that will have an unpredictable flight trajectory for the potential opponent. Along with the means for overcoming anti-missile defences that we already have, these new types of arms will enable us to maintain what is definitely one of the most important guarantees of lasting peace, namely, the strategic balance of forces.

Respect for sovereignty means to not allow unconstitutional action and coup d'états, the removal of legitimate power.

Nowadays, there are plans to separate the Baltic states from the common power system of the former Soviet Union and to integrate them into the European system. What does it mean for us in practice? In practice, it means that a number of zones will emerge between several regions of the Russian Federation, where we will have no power transmission lines, since previously we used to have a loop transition through the Baltic countries.

The US tactical nuclear weapons are in Europe, let us not forget this. Does it mean that the US has occupied Germany or that the US never stopped the occupation after World War II and only transformed the occupation troops into the NATO forces?

Addressing issues, including controversial ones, as well as domestic issues of the former Soviet Republics through the so-called coloured revolutions, through coups and unconstitutional means of toppling the current government. That is absolutely unacceptable.

If somebody prefers to work by means of sanctions, he is welcome to do so. But sanctions are a temporary measure. Firstly, they contradict the international law. Secondly, tell me where this policy of sanctions proved to be effective. The answer is nowhere.

Respecting the sovereignty means preventing coups, unconstitutional actions and illegitimate overthrowing of the legitimate government. All these things should be totally prevented.

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.

Any attention to them (terrorists) on the part of the media, any double-standard interpretation of their motives and results of their activity means nothing but a political and administrative support of terrorist acts