Vladimir Putin is the wealthiest man on the planet, for sure. But this is different to the wealth of a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett, a Carlos Slim or a Sergey Brin. They stay wealthy whether it is Barack Obama or Donald Trump in power. Putin's wealth depends on him staying in power. It is all about controlling the budget, the hard currency reserves and keeping under his thumb the oligarchs who cannot move their money without his permission. It is something close to a trillion dollars that he can control and move.

Boris Nemtsov and I began to argue after Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. In my opinion, there was no longer a realistic chance to achieve regime change through peaceful political means, or real elections. Boris, on the other hand, never lost this hope. He felt that my assessment was premature and said: "You have to live a long time to see changes in Russia." He was deprived of that opportunity.

I am between the Tories and the Lib Dems. I am fiscally conservative. I'm for strong foreign policy, but socially very liberal. I am not religious. That makes me feel uncomfortable with American Republicans. I don't feel at home anywhere, really. Labour under Tony Blair was not something I would associate myself with, but I didn't have a big problem with it. I have to make a choice between fiscal and the role of the state and social freedom.

Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who has led anti-corruption protests, had a blog about a credit line to a company owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, $1.75 billion from Russian state funds; this is one transaction. Putin controls more money directly and indirectly than any individual in human history.

If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.

From Ukraine to Syria, he [Vladimir Putin] is behaving like the world's new general and celebrating victories, while the American president sits on the sidelines and Europe sleeps. The West's behavior toward Putin is political and moral capitulation.

Do as little as necessary to appear to be doing something without actually committing to a cause or course of action.