MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. The "red lines" mentioned by President Vladimir Putin in his address are clear: encroaching on national interests and meddling in its political processes, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station on Wednesday.
"As for the red lines, they are clear," Peskov said. "In the first place, these are our national interests, the interests of our external and domestic security and preventing any foreign meddling <...> in our elections and other political processes. This is preventing an insulting talk with our country, infringing on our country’s economic interests and so on," he noted.
Meanwhile, Peskov did not specify whom Putin warned that crossing these lines was unacceptable. "Well, he has warned Shere Khan and minions," Peskov said, referring to Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, mentioned by Putin in his address.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian leader said in his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly that "taking digs" at Russia was transforming into some sort of sport. While commenting on some countries’ attempts to criticize Russia Putin made an allusion to Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, in particular such characters as jackal Tabaqui, who was always hanging around his boss, tiger Shere Khan, "keen to play along, thus winning favors from the sovereign" (a clear hint at Russia’s main adversaries and their minions).