Vladimir Putin mainly has friends in Europe among the extreme right, such as Marine Le Pen's Front National in France.

Few things are as psychologically brutal as chess.

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.

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.

My mother lives in Moscow, and I would like to visit her. Now she always has to travel to Finland or a Baltic country to meet me. But I have to expect that my papers would be confiscated in Moscow immediately, and that they would harass my family. I can still have more impact in the West with my books and lectures.

Like Dvoretsky, I think that (all other things being equal), the analytical method of studying chess must give you a colossal advantage over the chess pragmatist, and that there can be no certainty in chess without analysis. I personally acquired these views from my sessions with Mikhail Botvinnik, and they laid the foundations of my chess-playing life.

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.