We've been saying Putin is a dictator for years who doesn't care about the law.

It is quite clear, however, that there won't be any real changes with the current clan structure having seized power in the course of the Karabakh conflict.

Dictatorships sometimes fall unexpectedly and quickly. And [Vladimir] Putin knows that for him, the loss of power doesn't mean a comfortable retirement, but something completely different.

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.

In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America.

Moscow is simply unwilling to recognize the right of self-determination of nations.

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.