Putin is like Al Capone.

Rhetoric matters, but at the end of the day policy matters more.

Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before.

The technical phase can be boring because there is little opportunity for creavivity, for art. Boredom leads to complacency and mistakes.

Furthermore, the situation in the North Caucasus is rather unstable. Mutual relations and the cooperation between [Vladimir] Putin and [Ramzan] Kadyrov, the high price that has been paid to buy the loyalty of the local elite through an enormous tribute of multibillion[-ruble] investments, all this cannot be an arrangement for good.

I don't think that nature envisaged an insurmountable mechanism that would hinder any country from taking the path of democratic development.

Many Republicans who traditionally were for a positive role in the world, anti-Russian, now they want to defend their party and leader, and they don't care about real arguments. The paradox is the Democrats were so timid in criticising Vladimir Putin. Barack Obama appeased him and now they are criticising Putin's interference in American democracy. It is a strange reversal of the roles.