They do not represent the interests of the Russian state Maybe they’re not even Russians, Maybe they’re Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian c… - Vladimir Putin

The terrifying events happening right now in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of totally innocent people are being killed without differentiation, unable to flee, cannot be justified in any way.

All our actions, if they arise, always arise exclusively in response to unfriendly actions against Russia.

The CIA did its job to complete the coup <nowiki>[</nowiki>Euromaidan<nowiki>]</nowiki>. I think one of the Deputy Secretaries of State said that it cost a large sum of money, almost 5 billion dollars. But the political mistake was colossal! Why would they have to do that? All this could have been done legally, without victims, without military action, without losing Crimea. We would have never considered to even lift a finger if it hadn’t been for the bloody developments on Maidan. Because we agreed with the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union our borders should be along the borders of former Union’s republics. We agreed to that. But we never agreed to NATO’s expansion and moreover we never agreed that Ukraine would be in NATO. We did not agree to NATO bases there without any discussion with us. For decades we kept urging them: don’t do this, don’t do that.