When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why haven't you left? I would say, I'm staying, it's my home. He can leave! It felt very good to say that. But now - he wins. It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. And yet he's gotten people out of the country. That's the most terrifying thing about the current situation, and for the future of the country.

There's another piece of legislation in Russia that would make "allowing for nontraditional sexual relations" a cause for removing parental rights, and remove children from same-sex families altogether. It was withdrawn, most likely temporarily, under international pressure. What "allowing for nontraditional sexual relations" means, nobody knows. And this is part of the point of all of these laws. They have to be vague to not just enable but require selective enforcement.

When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.

The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality.

... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.

Conceit of the anti-gay law in Russia is to protect children, then the people who have the most to fear are LGBT parents. And sure enough, in conjunction with the homosexual propaganda law, they instituted a ban on adoptions by same-sex couples, or single people from countries where same-sex marriage is legal. That has very scary potential for any LGBT person with adopted kids, because Russian courts practice this particular legal concept called "annulment of adoption." So an adopted child is never exactly the same as a biological child, even if he or she was adopted ten years ago.

I received the Media for Liberty Award from Swedish PEN, and the prize was awarded by the Swedish minister of culture, who also happens to be the minister of sport. When she handed me the award, I said, Thank you, it's wonderful to be recognized, but we journalists always want more. So madam minister, I have a personal favor to ask you: Do not go to Sochi. And she announced that she was going to Sochi, but she's not attending the ceremonies, for political reasons. It's a very pointed stance.