"I want Russia, above all, to make a prosperous country. Its citizens must feel its prosperity on their pocket-their material situation and social welfare status. They are to feel safe."
For that, Russia is "to properly keep up and develop its Armed Forces. That will bring Russia a significant part to play, and this country will naturally take the place it deserves."
Russia is the world's biggest country, in terms of area. "We have interests and are represented in Asia and Europe, south and north. That's enough to us."
An interviewer asked the President about accusations of Russia hunting down its tycoons, in particular, victimizing Mikhail Khodorkovsky. To that, Putin said:
"As for the matter as a whole, I ought to refer to decisions made with privatization underway in the early and mid-1990s. An overwhelming majority of the Russian public finds many of those decisions disputable, putting it mildly. Some people made private capitals of five, six or seven billion dollars in a matter of five or six years. Sure, such people can afford several million dollars to protect their interests."
Putin has nothing against people making good money-but moneymaking is to be strictly aboveboard, he remarked.
"Those people develop their home country's economy through their business. They are self-made men to make their fortune on their own. Nothing is bad about it-yet it all must comply with the acting legislation. The state is to interfere whenever economic activists trespass the law.
"We shall be acting in compliance with the law, and that will be the Russian law," stressed the President.
