In my opinion, using different kinds of epithets and adjectives in connection with the word democracy is a sign of mere hypocrisy, to put it mildly. Either there's democracy, or there isn't.

Chess is life in miniature. Chess is struggle, chess is battles

If we look to the south, to Iran, which cannot be "accused" of excess democratic zeal - it goes without saying that the unstable situation does not prepare the ground for a democratic development.

There is no doubt that [Vladimir] Putin is responsible for this crime, whether or not he gave the order to commit the murder [of Boris Nemtsov] himself. Putin created the conditions and atmosphere that have made this kind of thing possible.

One of my optimistic prophecies is based on the assumption that machines could have the best algorithms in the universe, but it will never have purpose. And the problem for us to explain purpose to a machine is because we don't know what our purpose is. We have the purpose, but we still ... When we look at this global picture, a universal picture, to understand what is our purpose being here on this planet? We don't know.

We are living in a new ice age, and we need to apply the recipes of the Cold War to the Kremlin. That means isolation instead of offers of negotiation. And Ukraine should have been supplied with weapons long ago.

The Soviet Union tried to sell a set of ideas, very left wing, and focus on so-called peace. Vladimir Putin doesn't care who helps him to push his agenda. He is equally comfortable with the politics of Nigel Farage and Corbyn in Britain, Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France. Whether far left or nationalist, he doesn't care, as long as they support chaos and destruction and the undermining of existing institutions.