Get to these mountains in the middle of nowhere, and we allow al qaeda to escape . It makes no sense. Becomeire country had more legalistic. We should have gone and finished it right then. This month, book to these book selection is the wrong war. In his annual call in program thursday, russian president Vladimir Putin was asked about ukraine, crimea, and other Foreign Policy questions. President putin also told viewers he does not fear the enlargement of nato, and later answered a question about nsa contractor snowden and government mass surveillance. This is his 12th session. This is courtesy of the english language news channel russia today. [applause] hello, everyone. Welcome mr. Putin here. We are going to continue picking up your call today. You can call us at the number you see on your television screen. You can send a text message. Youre welcome to phone us from the Moscow Region for free. For those abroad, you can see the telephone number on the screen. We have received over 2 million questions so far. We are going to hit a new record. Lots of messages are simple. Like, thank you for crimea. Nice to see you. Let me remind you that you can send your question by video, to your computer. There are two websites accepting your messages. You still have time to do it. I would like to bring your attention to the fact that we are going to provide transmission for people with hearing disabilities today. We are going to talk about ukraine, where events are unfolding at a very dramatic pace. On the 17th of february, no one would think that crimea would be part of russia and that people have to thank, in the east of ukraine, these would be sent from the kiev government. Mr. Putin, what would you say about events unfolding in Eastern Ukraine . To characterize these events, let me go back a step and look at what happens in ukraine in the recent past. Before that was a time when president Viktor Yanukovych chose not to sign this document on the association with the eu. It was not an abandonment. He said that would deteriorate the social and Economic Situation in ukraine. For the citizens, he thought they would need to think about it. Unrest followed, which led to unconstitutional takeover of power. Some people liked that, others dont. In the east and the southeast of ukraine, people began to get worried about the future of their children, meaning that they have a desire there was nationalism. Threats were expressed. There was a desire to cancel some of the russian minority rights, even though that is not exactly a minority in that part of ukraine. They are the indigenous population. But the attempt was made to cancel early decisions about the use of their native tongue. And of course, this was a problem for those people. What began happening is that instead of setting up a dialogue and helping these people, there was sent from kiev the local oligarchs, billionaires, and by that time there was not trust in those billionaires. They were sent as administrators. That led to additional discontent and people began to offer the wrong reasons. What did the kiev authorities do . They put them in prison. All of that against the background of military units. They began threatening to use force in the east. The east began to arm themselves. Instead of realizing something was going wrong with the government of the states, instead of attempts to start a dialogue, they began threatening them with force. They moved tanks and aircraft against the civil population. That is one of the serious crimes of todays authorities in kiev. I hope you will be able to understand what kind of pitch, what kind of habits, the situation is turning into, with authorities dragging their country down that road with them. It is critical today to think together about how we can come out of this situation to offer to people this real, not artificial, dialogue. Kiev leaders come to the west. Whom do they meet in the west . They meet their own representatives. You do not have to go out. You just call them into kiev. You need to talk to people, to their real representatives. Those whom people trust. Bring them out of the prisons. Help them organize themselves. In the east, they talk about federalization. In kiev, they talk about defederalization. What is behind those words . We need to sit around the table, start negotiating. We are talking about dialogue, about democratic procedures, not the use of force. Without intimidation, that is how you can put your country to order. We have a dialogue between the diplomats and the meeting has opened that is going to feature four party talks in geneva. Could you explain russias stance at these talks . I explained to you, we believe this should not just be a showcase of all those people for themselves. They should have this dialogue with the people, searching for compromise. What would you respond to the statements coming from the west and kiev that claim that russia stands behind the uprisings in the eastern part of ukraine, that russia is allegedly sponsoring and financing these uprisings . It is nonsense. No russian units in the east of ukraine, no instructors, no special forces. Those are all local residents. The best proof of that is that people, in the direct sense of the word, removed their masks. My western partners they have nowhere to go. They have no contingency plans. They are the masters of that land. You need to be talking with them. We can talk about ukraine a little bit later. Lets move over to crimea and the decision you took on crimea. Throughout your whole political career, you never made any mention of reunification with crimea. You never spoke about it directly. How did you take that decision . Did anyone speak against it . What were the potential risks that you evaluated . From sanctions to a civil war. The risks for the russianspeaking population they were quite real. This led the people of crimea, the residents of crimea, think about their future and turned to russia for help. And this is what we were governed by. I mentioned during my speech in the kremlin that russia never planned any annexation or military actions in crimea. We wanted to build our relations with ukraine based on the current geopolitical situation. We also always thought and hoped for that our russian speaking people in ukraine were in a comfortable political situation and would not be suppressed. They would not be threatened. A situation came up with potential threats and repressions when the people of crimea began saying that they wanted selfdetermination. Then we began thinking about, what should we do . It was only then, not 5, 10, 20 years ago, did we make the decision to support representation in crimea. Nobody on the Security Council with whom i discussed this question objected, everybody supported my decision. I am pleased to admit that. Whatever was offered as a final action, everything was followed in a highly professional manner. It was done quickly and decisively. There is no analog from global history. This has been really unprecedented, i would say. Just as the referendum was organized in a really speedy way for the security issues, the way in which they were solved, the Ukrainian Military bases being stormed i had the feeling that something had been prepared. It was not prepared in advance. We were acting based on the situation and the spur of the moment. It was done very professionally. Our task was not to act with our armed forces in the true sense of the word. We had to ensure the residents were safe and they can express their will. That is what we did. Without the support of the crimean themselves, that would not be possible. Moreover, until the very last day, i never wrote the very last line, that i would send to the federal assembly on reunification with crimea because i was waiting for the results of the referendum. It is one thing when you have sociological surveys. It is a different thing when you are looking at the will of the entire population. It is important to feel and see what their will is. When we saw the turnout was 86 and 96 plus voted for joining with the Russian Federation, it was clear that it was an overwhelming majority, pretty much the entire crimean population. Right. Lets invite the residents to join us. We have our film crew working there. [applause] hello, mr. President. Im really happy to see my colleagues. We are reporting from the heart of the city. We have hundreds of people here from all walks of life. We have got navy seamen, whitecollar workers, everybody who voted for the reunification. We worked today for two platforms. My colleague is working on the second platform. Here he is. Right here is the base, the famous one, where the black sea fleet of the russian navy has been based for over 200 years. We have people from all corners of crimea. We are ready for dialogue with you. We are ready to talk to you, mr. President. [applause] this is the heart of sevastopol. We have all of the historic landmarks. You have got lots of citizens coming here with flowers to this monument every day. This is really special. The residents of sevastopol 23 years choose their right to speak russian, to be russian, and at the referendum, almost the whole city voted for reunification with russia. Who would like to ask their question . Hello, mr. President. The civilian personnel at the military base are concerned about the black sea navy. For a lot of us, this provides employment, as well as a really unique plant that is involved in repairing arms. What is going to be the future of these plants . You know this better than anyone else in russia. We had agreements with ukraine about the revamping of our fleet, upgrading of our fleet, but unfortunately those agreements were not followed and we had some problems with the reequipping of our fleets. The navy ships and support ships will be moved to sevastopol. Number two, we have Great Potential in crimea in terms of shipbuilding and ship repair work. Volume will be concentrated there for the repair of ships at the crimean shipyards. The minister of defense deployed or made an order and we will increase the potential of crimea. It has been sitting idle for a while. Were going to move in that direction, and sevastopol is a city of Russian Military and naval glory, and this is what we will base our actions on. [applause] there are were lots of really various ethnicities in sevastopol. The recent tragedies that fell upon lots of people and residents. I know this includes you. You can ask one of the questions. Hello, mr. President. My name is nina. The situation in ukraine is evolving in such a way that we have these borders divide our families. This applies to lots of families in crimea. How can you make sure that our brotherly, fraternal nations remain fraternal . We are all governed by certain emotions, but if we love each other and respect each other, we have to try to find a way to understand each other. More simple betwene countries and states, im sure we will find Mutual Understanding with ukraine. We will return to that problem again. Let me point this out. If we respect each other, then we will have to recognize the right of each other for our own choice and people who live in ukraine have to respect the choice that the residents of crimea made. That is my first thought. My Second Thought is that russia is next to ukraine and it will always be ukraines close neighbor. They will remember the help we provided to ukraine for many years. Hundreds of billions of dollars. It is not only the money. We are connected by a lot of common interests. If you want to be successful, we have to be cooperate. This understanding will come, despite all emotional difficulties that we experience today. [applause] we will take one more question from sevastopol. Here in sevastopol, we have people coming from all over crimea. Lots of people are saying it has been the third line of defense. Remember, there have been two wars that sevastopol was involved in. Now people are saying for 23 years they spent fending for the city of sevastopol, this was the third period in their history when they had to defend their city. The people are saying, what will follow the reunification . Hello, mr. President. My name is yvgeny. I want to thank you for making us come back home. Now we can call ourselves russian. [applause] thank you, thank you. But now that the government in ukraine is doing its best to impair the lives of the crimeans, we have all of the Banking Sector fleeing crimea. We have problems with bank transfers. People cannot get deposits back because the ukrainian banks are ignoring the interests and demands of the depositors. My question is as follows how can the russian government fix this situation . Today, it is one of the most topical and least regulated problems. Im sure there are other problems in the power sector, and water, but the banking that issue has not been resolved fully. We are trying to negotiate with our ukrainian partner. So far, it is failing. The head of the department, they do not, they are not willing to move to work with us. This only makes us split our Power Movement to rubles. We are looking at opening accounts and creating a banking network. It takes time to do it at a high level. We will need about a month to open the required amount of accounts and create the networks. With all of the necessary equipment. You mentioned pensioners and people who get their salaries from the budget. There are Economic Issues as well. This is all a passing thing. We will overcome that. The pensioners and those who get money from the budget, you know, the government of the Russian Federation has made a decision that they should be made equal to russian pensioners and budget inquiries to avoid the surge of inflation and the cause of the crisis we made a decision to follow a step by step process to increase by 25 the income of the pensioners and budget professionals from april 4. Then another 25 from may 1. Then another 25 from june 1. Then finish the remaining fund a 25 increase on the first of july. Over this time, the increase of pensioners, stateemployed professionals for the pensioners, there used to be a 100 difference between the income of russian pensioners and ukrainian pensioners. Russian pensioners get two times more than the ukrainians. In russia it is 11,600. They used to get 5500 in ukraine. We have a lot of military servicemen in crimea. There are a lot of crimean residents and our servicemen get paid four times more than the ukrainian counterparts. I hope that People Living in crimea will feel the advantages of joining the Russian Federation in a material sense, not to mention the development of the crimean economy, the development of tourism. That is what we will talk about later. Expecting her second baby can get her maternal care . Of course. All of the benefits that the residents of crimea had when they were part of ukraine, they should not be lost. Even if russia does not have similar things, using additional subsidies for the crimean budget, we will keep those and at the same time the residents of crimea and sevastopol will get all social allowances that are stipulated by the russian laws for the russian citizens. One more question from sevastopol, please. Mr. President , lots of people consider crimea a resort. What about our industry and agriculture . What is russia going to do to develop all of the industries in crimea . My second question is that you promised to create a free Economic Zone, a free economic area, what will that mean for ordinary crimeans . You are correct. Crimea is associated with tourism, but it also has an economic industrial and agricultural potential. These enterprises require Additional Organization and extra capital. I mentioned shipbuilding and ship repair. They have some promising infrastructure facilities. They have agriculture. Compared with 1990, unfortunately, if we compare how crimean agriculture work to then and now, Agricultural Production went down by 60 . In 2014, Agriculture Companies of crimea produced only 40 of what they produced in 1990. Agriculture also requires additional investment. That is also an issue that has to be resolved. The producing of rice requires a lot of water. This requires time and capital investment. This is what we will also be doing. The services and recreational facilities crimea is a base of the russian navy and also a resort for the entire soviet union. This is what we are going to develop as well. Unfortunately, facilities, they are building an infrastructure that has deteriorated. We visited the forts and found out that some of them cannot even be used for accommodations. How did people come there . It is shameful to admit, but people were saying that they were just Drinking Alcohol and went to the beach. We cannot have that kind of approach. It will require additional investments of capital and a free Economic Zone that you just mentioned. We will move russian capital to crimea to speed up the development, to let the residents of crimea have their own proposals. We met the mayor of sevastopol and she talked about creating a development agency. Im sure we are on the right track. We will get positive thoughts. Im going to introduce a little bit of criticism. Lots of Text Messages are saying that perhaps crimea may lose its identity, so to speak. People are going to build lots of beautiful palaces, gardens, mansions. There has been no elementary utilities in crimea and there will not be any. They have enough castles in crimea. I think what they are lacking is this close attention to recreational facilities for the masses. Like mushrooms, they spring up those castles for the rich people, for oligarchs. That is related to violations of the ecological legislation. I spoke to federal authorities in crimea. We need to do everything we can to make timely decisions to get rid of such a way of developing the territories there. Another text message is saying, who were those young people . Those polite young gentlemen, you mean . I already mentioned that a few times before publicly in my conversations with my foreign colleagues. Our task was to ensure that there are conditions for the Free Expression for the rule of crimeans were present. We wanted to avoid radicals and nationalists armed with automatic weapons. Of course, we have our servicemen. They were ac