Don't you know that Ukraine is not even a real country? Part of it is really East European, and part is really Russian. - Vladimir Putin

The dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all.

I think there are things of which I and the people who have worked with me can feel deservedly proud. They include restoring Russia's territorial integrity, strengthening the state, progress towards establishing a multiparty system, strengthening the parliamentary system, restoring the Armed Forces' potential and, of course, developing the economy. As you know, our economy has been growing by 6.9 percent a year on average over this time, and our GDP has increased by 7.7 percent over the first four months of this year alone. When I began my work in the year 2000, 30 percent of our population was living below the poverty line. There has been a two-fold drop in the number of people living below the poverty line since then and the figure today is around 15 percent. By 2009-2010, we will bring this figure down to 10 percent, and this will bring us in line with the European average. We had enormous debts, simply catastrophic for our economy, but we have paid them off in full now. Not only have we paid our debts, but we now have the best foreign debt to GDP ratio in Europe. Our gold and currency reserve figures are well known: in 2000, they stood at just $12 billion and we had a debt of more than 100 percent of GDP, but now we have the third-biggest gold and currency reserves in the world and they have increased by $90 billion over the first four months of this year alone.

Everything about this crime is now open and published, including a million of documents passed to our Polish partners. It was the leadership of the security services, NKVD, Beria, political leadership who, for decades of cynical lies, tried to bury the truth about Katyn massacre, but it would be just as incorrect to place all the guilt on Russian nation. We bow our heads to those who bravely met death here. In this ground lay Soviet citizens, burnt in the fire of the Stalinist repression of the 1930s; Polish officers, shot on secret orders; soldiers of the Red Army, executed by the Nazis. Above these graves, in front of people who come here to remember their relatives, it would be a hypocrisy to say: "let's forget everything". No, we must keep the memory of the past and, of course, we will do it, regardless of how bitter the truth is. On the road to unity we will have two principles: memory and truth. If things work this way then, soldiers of Katyn, it will be your main victory.