There's the blazing Russian Caucasus, with an ongoing war all against all, which is not to be neglected.

We have again a strange gap. We have the big scientific discoveries around the second, third century BC. Then we have an invention of the so-called Arab system, the positional system of counting with zero dated to the eighth or ninth century.

If you don't take risks, you don't drink champagne.

Perfectly correct chess exists only in theory.

Putin is like Al Capone.

Unfortunately, in Russia this "Asian mentality,"still comes to the fore. But at the same time, it is obvious that there is a certain orientation toward the West. In the end, this is a fragile balancing act between the Asian manner of governance and high living standards that are guaranteed through Western technology.

When I was on an American show in 2015, I tried to talk about the threat Vladimir Putin posed to the free world. The interviewer said, "Wake me up when he takes over Poland." We heard something similar from years ago and we ended up with World War Two. Putin decided to skip Poland and went straight to Wisconsin. Putin is at war, a hybrid war, with the free world. His domestic propaganda is based entirely on a strong man challenging the free world. When the demonstrations around Russia began, the harsh response was because it was more important to show strength.