Barack Obama took over after Vladimir Putin's first aggression, in Georgia. In 2009, he did the reset policy because they had these stupid ideas about former president Dmitry Medvedev. They thought he would be the leader, not Putin. Everyone played this game with Medvedev as their bet, Berlin, Paris, London, the idea of smoothly transferring to something more acceptable. It was always a charade, a Putin project to solidify his power and come back after four years of nominal occupation of the office by Medvedev.

Few things are as psychologically brutal as chess.

This obligation to move can be a burden to a player without strategic vision.

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

One does not succeed by sticking to convention.

I want to serve chess through games, books that are works of art. I would like to bring the game closer to many people all over the world.

The handover of power to [Dmitry] Medvedev was rather painless, everybody thought that the waves would calm automatically. By now, it's quite clear that [Vladimir] Putin doesn't want to relinquish the levers of power.