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So you addressed Trump as ‘Donald’, in a friendly way.

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He calls me Vladimir, I call him Donald.

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I mean, you have worked with four American presidents.

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Once Bush saw something in your eyes…

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Yes…

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But things did not go well with Obama, is that correct?

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Well…

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Who was it that you felt most at ease with?

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It is difficult for me to say now.

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Indeed, I had fairly constructive relations with each of them.

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But it did not go well with Obama.

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Did it or didn’t… I had good relations with Bush.

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Did somebody put you at odds with him?

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What?

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Did somebody put you at odds with him?

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No, it has nothing to do with ‘being at odds’.

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It's just that, when a person says that…

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Do you mean Barack?

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Sorry?

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Do you mean Barack?

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Yes. He already stated that the US is an exceptional nation,

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with special, exclusive rights to practically the entire the world,

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I cannot go along with that.

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God created us all equal and gave us equal rights.

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So, I think it is absolutely ungrounded to say that some people should 

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have exclusive rights to anything.

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On a scale from one to five, not to make it too complicated,

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how would you rate Russia’s current relationship with the US?

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I would give it a three.

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A three? Not bad.

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Between a two and a three. More like a three though. Look…

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And how about earlier?

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Look, we do cooperate on counter-terrorism.

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I’m serious… It was actually me who called Trump to thank 

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the US for giving us the information.

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You mean on the St Petersburg cell?

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Yes. They had been looking into them for a long time.

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And after that, the FBI provided this information 

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to the Federal Security Service.

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Does it mean that the Americans are working better than us 

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on our own soil?

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They work… I am not going to talk about it now,

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because this information is classified. They work globally.

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I won’t tell anyone.

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I'll whisper in your ear afterwards.

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Deal.

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They work globally, and so do we.

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Ok.

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But they were the ones who tracked this case down.

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That time, we did not.

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Our services track down a lot of them,

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thus preventing dozens of terrorist attacks,

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they catch and intercept them. Several dozen a year.

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That specific case was detected by the US.

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I would like to thank them a lot for sharing that information with us.

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So it’s a three now, but what was the peak rate?

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Well, let’s see… Trade turnover used to be higher,

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it dropped to 20 from 28, still very low.

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But in the last two years, under Trump, trade turnover started to grow.

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In terms of security, a while ago we concluded an agreement with Obama,

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the New START was also signed when he was in office.

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Now it has not been extended. Just yet. So this raises a question.

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The US keeps imposing sanctions on Russia. Another question.

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Take Nord Stream 2, they imposed sanctions on it as well.

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The US has always been against the development of our economic 

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relations with Europe, even in the 1960s,

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when we launched the construction, you remember,

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the gas-for-pipes deal.

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Thank God, now we produce large-diameter pipes ourselves, which is,

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by the way, another recent achievement of our white 

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metallurgy and other sectors.

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75 percent, and it is crucial, 75 percent of facilities in our 

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manufacturing sector, as well as machinery and equipment,

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have been manufactured in recent years,

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in the last 10 to 15 years. This is quite an achievement.

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They have always been against it.

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Against Nord Stream 1 – they did oppose it,

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now they oppose Nord Stream 2 in the same manner.

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So why did they do it, what for? What was the reason –

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to ensure transit through Ukraine.

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Looks a bit strange too, doesn’t it? So they are wooing Ukraine 

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and have introduced external control over it,

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but they want Ukraine to be sustained by our money as well.

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They don’t want to give Ukraine money themselves.

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They want Ukraine to receive something from us through transit fees.

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Ok, we agree, because following from the growth of gas consumption 

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in Europe in general and in Ukraine in particular, we, too,

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will be interested in it and we will go on with gas transit.

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The volumes will be lower, but we will continue.

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However, the main motivation, the excuse for imposing sanctions against 

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Nord Stream 2 was the need to ensure transit through Ukraine.

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We have signed a transit agreement with Ukraine.

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So, what is needed now? Sanctions against Nord Stream should be lifted.

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There are no grounds for imposing them.

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And if the sanctions remain, it will mean that there is only one 

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motive – to ensure competitive advantages for their LNG,

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for their liquefied gas.

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The strongest player sets the rules.

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They are securing a market for their products,

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exclusively in their own selfish interests 

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and at the expense of European consumers.

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But if the price of a fossil fuel rises by 25 to 30 percent,

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the competitiveness of the German economy,

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as well as the European one, will be undermined.

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But in fact, in geopolitical terms,

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Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok does not exist anymore.

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But it never existed.

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‘Anymore!’ You’re talking now about something which never existed,

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as if it is something we have lost.

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Back in the day, de Gaulle spoke about a Europe from 

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the Atlantic to the Urals.

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Then I extended that idea a little,

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and started saying: why to the Urals, why not to the Pacific,

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to the Far East? But I think we should aim for it.

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Was your Munich speech an overreaction?

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Not at all. Now they repeat everything I said.

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For example, the German leaders.

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They almost repeat it word for word… They were mad at me at the time,

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angry with me, they said, why did you do that?

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They took offense.

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No. Got angry because, well, it was a bit rude, at the wrong time;

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‘why would you do that’.

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And what did I say? I said that it is inadmissible that one country,

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the United States, extends its jurisdiction beyond its national borders.

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Today, say, the German leadership says exactly that,

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that it is inadmissible that the United States imposes 

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secondary sanctions, i.e.

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on companies, that have no relation to the United States,

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trying to prevent them from pursuing their national interests.

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Not only distant, but also our close neighbours started 

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to distance themselves from us in a way.

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Well, I don't see that. Who exactly started to distance themselves?

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Take Georgia, for instance.

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They didn’t just distance themselves –

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they jumped aside. Through no fault of ours.

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They should thank Mikheil Nikolayevich [Saakashvili] for that.

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But he hasn't been around for a long time.

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Not at all! He is running around, from square to square,

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taking to rooftops, like a tomcat.

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We had a lot of discussions with him on the subject when he 

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was still president. I think Mikheil Saakashvili would recall that.

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I told him: ‘Listen, don't you ever try to deal with South Ossetia 

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and Abkhazia using force.’ ‘No, I'll never do that,

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’ he said. And he still stormed in. He stormed in and got knocked back!