Putin Questions and Answers… (12-15-2011)
“The results of parliamentary elections undoubtedly reflect the country’s political landscape while the opposition will always consider the election outcome unfair,” Putin said during QA session.
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asks the Central Election Commission (CEC) to install video surveillance at all polling stations and to ensure live online transmission of the voting process. He believes the move might help pull the rug from under those who want to delegitimize the government.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the opposition parties should get the opportunity to closely monitor the polls during the presidential elections.
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“Without sticking [our] head in the sand and leaving [our] butt exposed, [we] should have insistently, fearlessly and consistently striven for the territorial integrity of our state,” Putin said during his live QA session when asked about his possible moves if he was ruling the country during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Timely economic reforms and democratic transformations could have saved the USSR, Putin said.
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“As long as their actions comply with the law, people are free to express their views over what is happening in the country’s economy, social sphere and political life. I hope that it will be so. I saw on TV that the rallies were attended by mainly young people who have clear-cut positions and are not afraid of expressing them. If this is the result of Putin’s policies, then it’s a good sign”, – Putin said.
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“The results of the parliamentary elections in Russia should be argued in court”, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said during his QA session on Thursday.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is currently dominating Twitter forums and the live call-in session given by Putin for two television channels and three radio stations on Thursday has topped Twitter trends.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin has never left his team and is still working together with him. “We need people like Alexey Kudrin in the future government. He will be in demand and will certainly find his place in the power”, Putin says.
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“I want to address those who are ready to vote for me as the presidential candidate. You should not follow the wrong logic by thinking that we could vote for him, but everyone is going to do this anyway, and we need to go shopping or go to the country. No one can decide anything, but you”, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told this in the “Conversation with Putin” show.
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“You are the ones who have to decide on who will be running foreign policy and representing our country abroad, who will be ensuring the country’s security, who will be solving social problems, who will be developing the economy. No one, but you”, Putin added.
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Speaking during his QA session, Russia`s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that courts dealing with alleged election fraud complaints must be objective.
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Mr. Putin stressed that before the final results of the elections were announced, local election commissions had the right to recount votes. “This is what was done in some cases, for example, in Saint Petersburg. But when the official results are published, a way to argue them is in court. And judges must deal energetically with these issues and be objective”, Mr. Putin said.
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Speaking during his QA session, Russia`s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that courts dealing with alleged election fraud complaints must be objective. Mr. Putin stressed that before the final results of the elections were announced, local election commissions had the right to recount votes. “This is what was done in some cases, for example, in Saint Petersburg. But when the official results are published, a way to argue them is in court. And judges must deal energetically with these issues and be objective”, Mr. Putin said.
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Russia has restored its grain export volumes to the number three among the world’s top grain exporters. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described this as “unprecedented” during his QA session on Thursday. Putin praised the farming sector for reinstating the country’s grain export potential to its previously high levels. Grain export volumes were also restored due to support from the state, Putin said.
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Speaking during his QA session, Russia`s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called on those citizens who attend protest rallies not to get themselves involved in provocations aimed to undermine stability in the country. “Protests must be lawful. People are often treated unfairly, and they must react to this but avoid being involved in any destabilizing schemes”, the Prime Minister said.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called “color revolutions” a developed scheme to destabilize countries. “I think this idea did not come out by itself”, he told the audience while answering citizens’ questions. “Some of our opposition leaders officially served as aides to the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko during the orange revolution in that country. Now they are using that experience in Russia”.
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During his tenth annual televised QA session on Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he saw nothing terrible in the protest rallies held in the aftermath of the December 4 parliamentary vote. “If this is the result of the “Putin regime”, I am pretty much happy about that, Putin said. “The outcome of the December 4 vote fully reflects the people’s political preferences and there is nothing surprising in that the opposition is unhappy about the final outcome. This is something you can always see everywhere,” the PM added. Admitting that the governing United Russia party had lost some of its clout, due, among other things, to the economic crisis, Putin said the party had still managed to retain its parliamentary majority.
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said he was sick and tired of election-related questions. Most of the questions that Putin received during his call-in show on Thursday concerned the elections. When asked by the host about his photo in the Vlast magazine which was provided with an obscene phrase calling on him to resign, Putin said that he found it amusing. The prime minister said that the inscription was made on a bulletin in London and that he knew who could have been behind it. These are people who cannot return to Russia as long as Putin is at the helm, he added.
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“Some people want to move Russia aside so it does not interfere in the ruling of the world,” Putin said during his QA session, referring to Western countries that are “afraid of Russia’s nuclear potential.”
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“It is not a secret that McCain took part in the U.S.-Vietnamese war…he’s got enough blood of peaceful civilians on his hands. He probably…can not live without these disgusting scenes of Gaddafi’s murder [Libyan late leader Muammar Gaddafi] when all the world’s channels broadcast how he was killed.”
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“They showed Gaddafi, covered in blood, to the whole world, showed how he was being killed”, Mr. Putin said. He added that Gaddafi was killed by US drones, and said that the operation cannot be viewed as democratic.
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“It’s well known that Mr McCain was captured in Vietnam and was locked not just in prison but in a hole, where he was imprisoned for several years. Any person would have bats in the belfry after that,” Putin said.
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed to bring back governor elections which he abolished in 2004.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says if he becomes President he will try to strengthen the stability of the political system and free the country of the influence from abroad. Answering citizens’ questions live, he stressed the need for a sustainable and secure system that would be exempt from the influence of those who want to meddle in Russian internal affairs. “These attempts should be immediately suppressed”, Putin says.
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Vladimir Putin said that in case there is no support from the people he will not stay in office for a day. “In the early 2000s I said several times that I consider myself to be a person hired by the people,” he said during a call-in session on Thursday. “It is possible to rely on the Russian people only. If I do not feel the support of the kind, and it is clear not from sites, but from elections, I will not stay in the office a day.”
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What Russia needs is not the fear of Stalin’s time, but effective laws and ability to observe them, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday during a call-in session. “We should manage everything so that law were fair, and demands from the power were proportionate to the objectives the people are facing,” he said. “We do not need fear.”
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has pledged to continue a tough fight against corruption. During a question-and-answer session, anchorman Vladimir Solovyov recalled Putin’s appeals to imprison corrupt officials and asked whether imprisonments will begin. So let us start with you, media people, Putin joked. “Many people have appealed to me concerning media using its monopoly situation in certain segments in order to settle economic issues among many others,” Putin said. He added that corruption can exist at all levels of power, as well as in media, the education and healthcare sectors. “This is a trouble of the whole society,” he stressed. “But the desire to swim on the crest of the wave, to be liked and, I am sorry, to shut down somebody, put somebody behind bars at any cost demonstrating one’s toughness – is the most simple thing that a person in my position could do,” Putin said.
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“In regard to improving conditions in orphanages and solve other social issues concerning children without parental care—I mean first of all providing them with housing—conditions need to be made for reducing the number of foreigners who adopt Russian children, to reduce it to zero in the near future, and encourage Russians to adopt children,” Putin said during a televised QA session with the nation. The prime minister added that he was not in favor of foreigners adopting Russian children.
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Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan may introduce a single currency in the future within the Eurasian Economic Union between the three former Soviet republics, a new entity meant to promote cooperation both with Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
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Russia wants to build up further cooperation with the U.S., the country’s Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said during his televised QA session on Thursday. “Sometimes I think that the U.S. needs no allies but vassals. Nevertheless, we will keep on building our cooperation with the United States”.
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