==引自俄罗斯克里姆林宫官网（英文版）==
Hubert Seipel: You acted promptly. You, so to say, annexed Crimea and justified it at the time based on the fact that 60 percent of Crimea's population were Russians, that Crimea has a long history of being part of Russia and, lastly, that its fleet is stationed there. The West saw that as a violation of international law.
Vladimir Putin: What is your question exactly?
Hubert Seipel: Did you underestimate the reaction of the West and the possible sanctions, which were later imposed on Russia?
Vladimir Putin: We believe that this sort of reaction was totally disproportionate to what had happened.
Whenever I hear complaints about Russia violating international law I am simply amazed. What is international law? It is first of all the United Nations Charter, international practice and its interpretation by relevant international institutions.
Moreover, we have a clear recent precedent – Kosovo.
Hubert Seipel: You mean the International Court of Justice ruling on Kosovo? The one in which it stated that Kosovo had the right to self‑determination and that the Kosovars could hold a vote to determine the future of their state?
Vladimir Putin: (In German.) Exactly. (Continues in Russian.) But not only that. Its main point was that when making a decision concerning their self-determination, the people living in a certain territory need not ask the opinion of the central authorities of the state where they presently live. They do not need the approval by the central authorities, by the government, to take the necessary measures for self-determination. That is the central point.(简译：在做出有关自决的决定时，居住在特定领土上的人们无需征询他们目前所在地的中央当局的意见。他们不需要中央政府的批准就可以采取必要的自决措施，那才是核心。)
And what was done in Crimea was not in any way different from what had been done in Kosovo.
I am deeply convinced that Russia did not commit any violations of international law. Yes, I make no secret of it, it is a fact and we never concealed that our Armed Forces, let us be clear, blocked Ukrainian armed forces stationed in Crimea, not to force anybody to vote, which is impossible, but to avoid bloodshed, to give the people an opportunity to express their own opinion about how they want to shape their future and the future of their children.
Kosovo, which you mentioned, declared its independence by parliamentary decision alone. In Crimea, people did not just make a parliamentary decision, they held a referendum, and its results were simply stunning.
What is democracy? Both you and me know the answer well. What is demos? Demos is people, and democracy is people's right. In this particular case, it is the right to self-determination.
Hubert Seipel: It shows immediately that you are a lawyer.
But you know the arguments of the West as well. The West says that the elections were held under the control of Russian military. This is the reasoning of the West.
Let me touch upon the next issue. Today, Ukraine is more or less divided. Four thousand people have died, hundreds of thousands have become refugees and fled, among other places, to Russia. In the east of the country, Russian-speaking separatists are demanding broad autonomy, some want to join Russia. In accordance with the Minsk agreement, ceasefire was declared, but people are dying every day. The country is bankrupt. Basically everybody lost in the conflict. Ukraine seems to have lost the most, but Europe and Russia did as well. How do you see Ukraine's future?
Vladimir Putin: Ukraine is a complex country, and not only due to its ethnic composition, but also from the point of view of its formation as it stands today.
Is there a future and what will it be like? I think there certainly is. It is a large country, a large nation with the population of 43–44 million people. It is a large European country with a European culture..
You know, there is only one thing that is missing. I believe, what is missing is the understanding that in order to be successful, stable and prosperous, the people who live on this territory, regardless of the language they speak (Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian or Polish), must feel that this territory is their homeland. To achieve that they must feel that they can realise their potential here as well as in any other territories and possibly even better to some extent. That is why I do not understand the unwillingness of some political forces in Ukraine to even hear about the possibility of federalisation.
We've been hearing lately that the question at issue should be not federalisation but decentralisation. It is all really a play on words. It is important to understand what these notions mean: decentralisation, federalisation, regionalisation. You can coin a dozen other terms. The people living in these territories must realise that they have rights to something, that they can decide something for themselves in their lives.
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