Commenting on agreements with Turkey to build a new gas pipeline, Putin said, "We are ready to build it in a volume enough to supply gas via Turkey to the European Union. We want to punish no one or take umbrage at anyone." "If it is possible from the logistics point of view, we are ready to go further to Bulgaria - the European Commission is already asking us to do that; we are ready to go to Greece," Putin said. "It means we are not going no close anything, we are not going to isolate ourselves from anyone."

According to the Russian leader, Russia has never abandoned South Stream-related plans. "They simply did not let us implement it," Putin said with regret, citing the European Parliament’s decision of April 2014 to recognize the South Stream project as "not merely unpromising but even harmful to the European Union." After that, they demanded Bulgaria stop preparatory work. Altogether, four months later, the Dutch regulator issued a permit to build the seabed sections of the pipeline (South Stream was registered as an international company in the Netherlands), which "came unexpectedly for me," Putin noted. But it was impossible to issue a permit to an Italian construction company to begin construction works at sea, since there was no permission to enter Bulgaria’s territory. "It is absurd!," Putin said. "We simply were forced to close this project, they did not let us implement it."

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