- By Mike Eckel
Question about domestic violence.
Background: Another piece of social policy legislation bouncing around the State Duma and elsewhere has hit a chord within some parts of Russian society, particularly liberal circles: domestic violence.
In particular, the push to criminalize it: that is, spousal abuse and child abuse.
There've been at least 40 efforts over the last decade to pass such bills. None of them has passed even the first reading.
Another effort is under way, and as before, conservative organizations and advocates of so-called traditional values have mobilized to defeat it. The opposition to the measure basically boils down to: the government shouldn't be regulating what goes on within a family AND such efforts are anti-Russian, an import of Western values.
For liberal-minded Russians, particularly in the biggest cities -- Moscow, St. Petersburg-- it's an outrage that it's the 21st century, and it's still not a crime in Russia if a husband beats his wife.
Putin dodged the question, which reflects in part his need to further foster support from conservative sectors of Russian society, including the Russian Orthodox Church, which doesn't support the legislation.
"I have a mixed attitude. I am against violence against children and women. I have not read the bill. Do we need it? I don’t know. Let's calmly discuss it," he said.
Putin on "Foreign Agents":
"After introducing the law on foreign agents, some organizations receiving funds from abroad changed their system. The funds started being sent to individuals and those individuals later were giving that money to the organizations, which then legally were not financed by foreign sources. But in fact they were. That was the idea [of the law]."
A view from outside:
"In the train car someone is listening to Putin's press conference on his telephone. You won't believe it, but passengers forced him to turn on the headphones. 'But can't you listen to it through the headphones!?!'"
- By Mike Eckel
A reporter from Minsk threw out an intriguing query for Putin: Essentially, what do you think about Gorbachev and the breakup of the Soviet Union?
"As for the legal assessment of Gorbachev’s steps or someone else’s, I cannot understand what this will bring about from the point of view of territorial integrity. We have solved all issues and all the documents have been signed. What can a legal assessment of their activities accomplish? I do not understand," Putin says.
(Background for this question is the pending issue of whether Belarus and Russia will in fact, finally, sign an agreement creating a long-discussed Union State. For the moment, it appears it won't happen, thanks to the long-standing hesitations of Belarus' president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.)
On terrorist attacks on Russian soil -- the Beslan school siege of 2004 that killed more than 330 people, and the Dubrovka Theater hostage crisis in which at least 170 died.
"Putin: The most difficult events [during the leadership of the country] are, of course, major terrorist attacks. Beslan, I will never forget. The attack on Dubrovka!"
- By Mike Eckel
Brexit and BoJo.
One of the BBC's Moscow correspondents got in a question about Britain's ongoing Brexit process, and the recent election that gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson a commanding majority in parliament, paving the way for London to leave the European Union.
Putin answered the question by congratulating Johnson on the recent electoral victory.
"He sensed the mood in British society better than the opposition," he says.
Johnson has also had unflattering words for Putin -- Johnson has called him a "ruthless and manipulative tyrant." There has also been persistent speculation, unconfirmed and uncorroborated, about whether Moscow sought to interfere in the original Brexit vote.
Putin answers:
"I know what my country's interests are. No matter what anyone anywhere says about me and my country, the fundamental interests of my country come first."
"People in the West, foreign governments, always comment on developments in Russia. I wonder if that can be defined as meddling into Russia's internal affairs... We also comment on developments in those countries. And that is the only thing that may be interpreted as Russia's meddling."