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

I can't think of a scenario under which [Vladimir Putin] would gradually resign from power. For him and those around him, power became a source of unlimited enrichment. A loss of power would be tantamount to an annihilation of the economic success that has been achieved so far.

Chess is mental torture.

Few things are as psychologically brutal as chess.

We have again a strange gap. We have the big scientific discoveries around the second, third century BC. Then we have an invention of the so-called Arab system, the positional system of counting with zero dated to the eighth or ninth century.

The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent.

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