Featured
Today
Browse
Authors
Topics

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин) (born 7 October 1952) was the President of Russia from 2000 till 2008. He is the current Prime Minister of Russia.

Sourced

  • 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.

  • Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers? No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to childkillers.
    • In response to those who called Putin to enter talks with Chechen separatists after the Beslan school hostage crisis, in September 2004

  • Yes, life in Chechnya so far looks more like a life after a natural disaster.
    • http://www.thailand.mid.ru/chech2.html

  • People in Chechnya — just as throughout Russia — must have the possibility to live normally, to have rest and leisure and medical treatment and to raise and educate their children.
    • http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2003/03/17/0000_44221.shtml

  • Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interests of itself and interests of its people — of its citizens. This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people, themselves. No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.

  • I see that not everyone in the West has understood that the Soviet Union has disappeared from the political map of the world and that a new country has emerged with new humanist and ideological principles at the foundation of its existence.

  • Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.

  • First, we are working hard now on creating a genuine multiparty system. {...} Second, we are redistributing powers between the federal, regional and municipal authorities.


  • I realise that 2008 will be an important test for Russia, and not an easy one.
    At the same time, the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that the President, the head of state, is elected for four years through direct secret ballot and cannot stay in office for more than two consecutive terms.
    I am not indifferent of course to the question of who will take in their hands the destiny of the country I have devoted my life to serving. But if each successive head of state were to change the Constitution to suit them, we would soon find ourselves without a state at all. I think that Russia's different political forces are sufficiently mature to realise their responsibility to the people of the Russian Federation. In any case, the person who receives the votes of the majority of Russian citizens will become the President of the country.

  • Not everyone likes the stable, gradual rise of our country. There are some who are using the democratic ideology to interfere in our internal affairs.

  • I will recall once more Russia's most recent history.
    Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.
    Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups — possessing absolute control over information channels — served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
    Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.
    But they were mistaken.
    That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life.

  • We have spoken on many occasions of the need to achieve high economic growth as an absolute priority for our country. The annual address for 2003 set for the first time the goal of doubling gross domestic product within a decade.

  • Russia must realise its full potential in high-tech sectors such as modern energy technology, transport and communications, space and aircraft building.



  • Russia's modern foreign policy is based on the principles of pragmatism, predictability and the supremacy of international law.


  • A superpower is a cold war term. When people today say that Russia aspires to have this status, I interpret it in the following way: they want to undermine trust in Russia, to portray Russia as frightening, and create some kind of image of an enemy. ... Russia is in favor of a multipolar world, a democratic world order, strengthening the system of international law, and for developing a legal system in which any small country, even a very small country, can feel itself secure, as if behind a stone wall. ... Russia is ready to become part of this multipolar world and guarantee that the international community observes these rules. And not as a superpower with special rights, but rather as an equal among equals.

  • If there is no possibility or, to put it in plain terms, if there is no money... What can you do? You can't go to a store, you can't buy anything, either a cannon, or a missile, or a medicine. For this reason the economy is at the basis of everything. In the beginning it was Karl Marx and then Freud and others...

  • 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.

  • Their [US] defense budget in absolute figures is almost 25 times bigger than Russia's. This is what in defense is referred to as "their home — their fortress". And good for them, I say. Well done!
    • On the United States
    • 2006 annual address to the Federal Assembly



  • 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.
    During the 1990s and even in 2000-2001, we had massive capital flight from Russia with $15 billion, $20 billion or $25 billion leaving the country every year. Last year we reversed this situation for the first time and had capital inflow of $41 billion. We have already had capital inflow of $40 billion over the first four months of this year. Russia's stock market capitalisation showed immense growth last year and increased by more than 50 percent. This is one of the best results in the world, perhaps even the best. Our economy was near the bottom of the list of world economies in terms of size but today it has climbed to ninth place and in some areas has even overtaken some of the other G8 countries' economies. This means that today we are able to tackle social problems. Real incomes are growing by around 12 percent a year. Real income growth over the first four months of this year came to just over 18 percent, while wages rose by 11-12 percent.
    Looking at the problems we have yet to resolve, one of the biggest is the huge income gap between the people at the top and the bottom of the scale. Combating poverty is obviously one of our top priorities in the immediate term and we still have to do a lot to improve our pension system too because the correlation between pensions and the average wage is still lower here than in Europe. The gap between incomes at the top and bottom end of the scale is still high here – a 15.6-15.7-fold difference. This is less than in the United States today (they have a figure of 15.9) but more than in the UK or Italy (where they have 13.6-13.7). But this remains a big gap for us and fighting poverty is one of our biggest priorities.

  • Товарищ волк знает, кого кушать. Кушает, и никого не слушает, и слушать, судя по всему, не собирается.
    • Translation: Comrade wolf knows who to eat. He eats without listening to anybody and it seems he is not ever going to listen.
    • On the U.S., whose military budget is 25 times bigger than Russia's; annual presidential address to the Federal Senate, 10 May 2006

  • Надо исполнять закон всегда, а не только тогда, когда схватили за одно место.
    • Translation: You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.
    • Interview, 4 November 2003

  • Понятно, что надо больше платить, это самый простой вариант, не всегда возможный,(но простой) но способов решения проблемы много
    • Translation: It is clear that we have to pay more, it is the simple option, not always affordable, ("but simple," said in actual recording) but the ways to solve the problem are many.
    • On human capital flight, in address to Committee for Education, Science and Technology, October 26, 2004

  • The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final.
    • Interview in Brazil for space talks, 22 November 2004

  • It's extremely dangerous trying to resolve political problems outside the framework of the law — first the ‘Rose Revolution', then they'll think up something like blue. [word play here: "rose" having the colloquial sense of "lesbian" in modern Russian, and "blue" meaning "gay"]
    • On the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia
    • News conference, 23 December 2004 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/russia/article405454.ece

  • First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

  • He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We all envy him.



  • После смерти Махатмы Ганди поговорить не с кем.

  • I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning till night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results.

Quotes about Vladimir Putin

  • I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.

  • [In 2000] Vladimir Putin had the intelligence, energy and stamina the country needed to get Russia's economy on track and handle its complicated politics.
    • Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, "Boris the Fighter", The New York Times, April 29, 2007



Video clips

 
Quoternity
SilverdaleInteractive.com © 2024. All rights reserved.