MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that by no means does he consider himself to be a tsar. In his TASS interview for the project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin", the head of state asserted that a tsar merely issues orders, while the president works every day. "A tsar is one who just sits there, looks down from above and says: ‘They will do as I order’, while he just tries on a cap and looks at himself in the mirror," he said.
Putin, who has spent 20 years holding the highest-ranking posts in the Russian government, confessed it had never occurred to him that his stay at the helm of power would last so long.
"It never crossed my mind. I never thought that I would wind up here. That never would have occurred to me," he said.
About the possibility of dropping out of the race at some point, Putin said he felt "responsible for what is going on, and for what will happen in the future."
He added that in 2008, he did not have the slightest idea that in four years’ time he would occupy the presidential office again, although he did not exclude that possibility altogether.
Episode 17 of the video interview is available at https://putin.tass.ru/en.