Syria is already in the grips of a civil war, unfortunately enough, and Egypt is moving in that direction. We would like to see the Egyptian people a… - Vladimir Putin

Russia does not want confrontation of any kind. And we will not take part in any kind of "holy alliance".

Warfare with the use of aviation and military hardware and so on, a huge number of militant groups on the territory of this country, with militants coming mostly from terrorist organisations based abroad, including Al-Qaeda who were active in this country. Thank God, we got rid of this but we have not eradicated terrorism per se. Of course, terrorism still poses a great threat to our country as well, which was why we launched these operations in Syria...

Now on our relationship with Ukraine: I will disagree when you said that if we had been separated we would not have been victorious in the war. We would have won in any case, because we are a country of winners. [. . .] This means, that the war was won—I don’t want to offend anyone—on account of the industrial resources of the RF. It’s a historical fact, it’s all in the documents.” (Теперь по поводу наших отношений с Украиной. Я позволю с вами не согласиться, когда вы сейчас сказали, что если бы мы были разделены, мы не победили бы в войне. Мы все равно победили бы, потому что мы - страна победителей. [. . .] Это значит, что война выиграна, не хочу никого обижать, за счет индустриальных ресурсов РФ. Это исторический факт, это все в документах.)