Georgia

"Can NATO bring anyone closer? History does not know any such examples. What I can see is that NATO is adding new members, who are now being pulled in by various methods.”

“When Montenegro and Macedonia were out of the blue dragged into NATO, the situation with Macedonia’s name was used in a brazen manner. They held a referendum organized in gross violation of the constitution, which in Macedonia requires a referendum to put forward only one question, but they put forward three: do you want to be a member of the European Union, a member of NATO, and are you ready to change the name of the country for that. In general, a fraudulent question, of course.”

“The latest wave of anti-Russian sanctions is related not to our relations with the Americans but to the domestic problems in the United States.”

"The decision is clearly political in its nature and, as a matter of fact, is practically censorship — seven [Facebook] pages belonging to our news hubs in neighboring countries have been blocked.”

“I note that we’ve never, even in the days of tsarist Russia, killed people for dissent. This, by the way, is the great strength of our people.”

“It’s a provocation, specifically to coerce the Russian delegation to slam the door and pull out of PACE.”

“Russia’s military budget has been decreasing, not increasing, year after year. You’d have thought NATO intelligence would have spotted that. Now compare Moscow’s military spending to NATO’s, which is almost a trillion dollars a year. It literally accounts for half the world’s military spending. I mean, there’s no competition here.”

“We love and are proud of President Vladimir Putin, because he is a friend of Palestine and not only Palestine, but all the people who are seeking freedom. President Putin succeeded in restoring Russia’s authority in the international arena and forced all to respect Russia.”

“It [the 2008 Russian-Georgian War] was an operation for the enforcement of peace.”

“All the time we are accustomed to believe that the international audience does not love us, that they particularly don’t love Putin and all of us who are close to him or live in his country. I’m always arguing with my acquaintances and friends …who love to repeat the phrase – ‘the whole world is against us’… I always want to point out to my friends: ‘And what, China isn’t the world, India isn’t the world, the Arab world, almost all of which is completely on our side -- well a significant part of it -- isn’t the world? Latin America isn’t the world? They don’t respect other nations, because for those people, the world is the Western world, and not just people from the so-called Western world, but the Western establishment…”

“…behind the walls of the Lugar Laboratory, biologists of the U.S. military-medical group in Georgia and private contractors under federal contract with the … Defense Threat Reduction Agency indeed could have performed secret experiments on residents of Georgia.”

“This demonstration of power potential is taking place in close proximity to Russian borders and has a clear anti-Russian orientation. Northern Europe and the Baltic region, previously calm militarily, are turning into a training ground for simulating large-scale military operations, setting up public opinion for the possibility of their transformation into a real theater of war.”