Vladimir Putin

If one looks at the map of the world, it’s difficult to find Iraq, and one would think it rather easy to subdue such a small country.

In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the issues of foreign policy and defense are fully in the hands of the president.

How does one control weight? By not overeating. How does one stay in shape? One plays sports. There are no magic pills here.

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

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

Russia is opposed to the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, including nuclear weapons, and in this context we call upon our Iranian friends to abandon the uranium enrichment programme.

Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

[on Les Paul guitars] It’s the construction and sound of it. With this material, the wood and neck construction and scale length really yields a different sound all together, and I just gravitate towards that. I pretty much get everything I want with it, so I’m very satisfied.

Ultimately it’s a question of whether democracy is going to be allowed to exist, and to what extent. And it’s entirely natural that the business world, along with the state, which they largely dominate, would want to limit democracy. It threatens them.

There is not, nor should there be, an irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of an individual person and the interests of the collective.

As president, I will bring all the parties and stakeholders together. I am going to come up with a solution that respects the environment and does not cause an upheaval in the economy.

Capital punishment is a crime. I agree with Amnesty International on that one, and indeed with most of the world. The state should have no right to take people’s lives.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud

Imagine, a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It’s not 3,000. It’s tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

The Middle East is hopeful. There’s hope there.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I see is a savage monster’; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.

WE are good, and THEY are evil. That useful principle trumps virtually any argument. Analysis of commentary and much of scholarship reveals that its roots commonly lie in that crucial principle, which is not argued but asserted.

I’m a history buff, and I know that big changes take time. But I also know that, setting politics aside, usually things are never as good as you think they are or as bad as you think they are. And that has served me well temperamentally.

Chechnya is part and parcel of the Russian Federation.

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.