I wouldn't place much stock in numbers. I don't believe that they reflect Putin's true popularity. Just think about how the pollsters proceed. They call people and they ask them questions on the street. In today's Russia, it takes a lot of courage to tell a stranger something critical about the head of the Kremlin. And yet more than 20 percent do so nonetheless.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice.

But we must not forget the effort undertaken by the ruling elite in Russia to manipulate Western politicians, businessmen as well as journalists. That's why [Vladimir] Putin's "fifth column" is that powerful in the West.

I would not draw definitive conclusions from that. If we look at South and North Korea, it is pretty hard to believe that we're dealing with the same people. Half of the people are forced to live in a concentration camp; the other have created one of the most dynamic economies in the world.

Setbacks and losses are both inevitable and essential if you're going to improve and become a good, even great, competitor. The art is in avoiding catastrophic losses in the key battles.

The real political life in Russia unfortunately is not in the parliament but on the streets and in the media.

The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.