With some reservation, it can be said that certain democratic elements are present in Georgia as well; but it is very clear that the government has to pronounce its explicit wish to resign before something is going to happen. On the western front, only Belarus is an exception.

You know, if I'm in a bad mood, I always look at the chessboard, just to find something that can cheer me up.

Constructs like race will decline in relevance in a roboticized world. That how well one human subset or community - a race, a nationality, a religion - is doing will be secondary to how well humanity in general is doing in face of the robot revolution.

The Kremlin is constantly changing the rules of the game to suit its purposes. We are not playing chess, we're playing roulette.

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.

We can't attribute a long history of democratic traditions to Japan, either, but today Japan boasts a fully-fledged democracy in which governments change according to democratic procedures. It's no coincidence that the Taiwanese, Japanese, and South Korean economies are among the most innovative in Asia.

I now have Croatian citizenship, but I only accepted it because Croatia allowed me to keep my Russian passport.