Vladimir Putin Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state and will choose its own path to peace and security [...] Such a conversation would be entirely appropriate and entirely possible. I certainly don't see there being anything particularly tricky here, anything that need or that could cast a shadow over relations between Russia and Ukraine.
About Ukraine seeking membership in Nato, after the Nato–Russia Council was created

Vladimir Putin
This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he [John Kerry] is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.

Vladimir Putin
There are 17 million ethnic Russians there, officially. Almost 100% of the people consider Russian as their mother tongue, in the same interview, according to Time.

Vladimir Putin
Mr McCain fought in Vietnam. I think that he has enough blood of peaceful citizens on his hands. It must be impossible for him to live without these disgusting scenes anymore. Mr McCain was captured and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years, Anyone [in his place] would go nuts.

Vladimir Putin
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 avoid this fate

Vladimir Putin
I am personally acquainted with Mr Gates, I have met him on several occasions. I think he is a very nice man and not a bad specialist. But Mr Gates, of course, was one of the leaders of the US Central Intelligence Agency and today he is defense secretary. If he also happens to be America's leading expert on democracy, I congratulate you.

Vladimir Putin
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.

Vladimir Putin
On Moshe Katsav:
He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We all envy him.

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

Vladimir Putin
We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them. Our Air Force's military work in Syria must not simply be continued. It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that vengeance is inevitable.

Vladimir Putin
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.

Vladimir Putin
I bow my head to the victims of terrorism. I am highly impressed of the courage of New York residents. The great city and the great American nation are to win!

Vladimir Putin
People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don't want to learn it themselves.

Vladimir Putin
It's difficult to talk to people who whisper even at home, afraid of Americans eavesdropping on them. It's not a figure of speech, not a joke, I'm serious.

Vladimir Putin
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

Vladimir Putin
Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.

Vladimir Putin
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.

Vladimir Putin
He is profoundly wrong. Our country is run by the people of the Russian Federation through legitimately elected bodies of power and administration: through representative bodies (the parliament) and executive bodies (the president and the government of the Russian Federation)

Vladimir Putin
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"]

Vladimir Putin
I may disappoint you but I don't share the common excitement about the speech by Greta Thunberg.

Vladimir Putin
About Greta Thunberg:
No one has explained to Greta that the modern world is complex and different and [...] people in Africa or in many Asian countries want to live at the same wealth level as in Sweden.

Vladimir Putin
About Greta Thunberg:
When someone is using children and teenagers in personal interests, it only deserves to be condemned. I'm sure that Greta is a kind and very sincere girl. But adults must do everything not to bring teenagers and children into some extreme situations.

Vladimir Putin
Even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today's Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states.

Vladimir Putin
Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so, to create threats for our country, for our people should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history.

Vladimir Putin
Do you realize that if Ukraine joins NATO and decides to take Crimea back through military means, the European countries will automatically get drawn into a military conflict with Russia? Of course, NATO's united potential and that of Russia are incomparable. We understand that, but we also understand that Russia is one of the world's leading nuclear powers, and is superior to many of those countries in terms of the number of modern nuclear force components.

Vladimir Putin
Not all G8 members take the view that chemical weapons were in fact used by the Syrian Army. Some actually agree with us that there is no proof We had disagreements that is true but I never felt lonely and Russia never was on its own in making a statement in regards of Syria.

Vladimir Putin
We are not for Assad, neither for his opponents, We want to achieve the situation where the violence ends and there won't be large-scale civil war. How many of peaceful people were killed by so-called militants? Did you count? There are also hundreds of victims. What is happening in Libya, in Iraq? Did they become safer? Where are they heading? Nobody has an answer.

Vladimir Putin
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...

Vladimir Putin
Recently the British people suffered a huge loss. It was a tragedy next to his barracks on the streets of London. A violent assassination, a very brutal killing of a British serviceman. Clearly the opposition is not composed all of this but many of them are exactly the same as the ones who perpetrated the killing in London. If we equip these people, if we arm them what is going to control and verify? who is going to have these weapons?, including in Europe as well. So we call all our partners, before making this dangerous step, think about it very carefully.

Vladimir Putin
They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle 'If you are not with us, you are against us.' To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organizations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall.

Vladimir Putin