The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. Today I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early.

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.

When you put party over principles, you can't avoid tripping over your own hypocrisy and contradictions eventually. The GOP establishment refused to stand up to Trump during the primary because they wanted his voters in order to beat Hillary Clinton. Then he won the primary, and then the general, and the GOP both times decided it was better to cling to their grasp at power, to cling to Trump and all he stands for, a decision that should destroy the party or drag it down for a generation.

I have great energy and I have great tasks ahead of me.

It is rather difficult to envisage a scenario that could change the domestic situation in the countries of the South Caucasus without solving the problems constantly hindering normal cooperation in the region.

Remember that the machine is there to help you, because at the end of the day, you're not playing freestyle chess, advanced chess, human-plus-machine. If you are playing against other humans, it's about winning the game. The machine will not be assisting you, unless you are cheating of course. And since the machine is not there, you have to make sure that everything you learn from the computer will not badly affect the way you play the real game.

Many politicians in the West cling to the notion of a partnership with Russia. They want to include [Vladimir] Putin, make compromises and constantly negotiate new deals with him. But history has taught us that the longer we pursue appeasement and do nothing, the higher the price will be later on. Dictators don't ask "Why?" before they seize even more power. They ask: "Why not?"