Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature.
It is better to have a bad plan than no plan.
I wouldn’t overestimate the importance of my popularity in the country and abroad but at the end of the day it’s not as important because I believe that my presence here could make some difference and it could encourage people.
I don’t make any secret of the fact that I’m closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats. But even under a President Hillary Clinton, US foreign policy toward Moscow would probably be more critical and confrontational. I hope it isn’t too late for that.
I would like to travel to my country again, to a country without a dictatorship, to a post-Putin Russia.
I certainly want to be involved in politics and help shape the transition. I am in contact with regime critics who had to leave for the West. One of them is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former businessman, who had to endure 10 years in a prison camp.
There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end.
I’m looking forward to the day when my country is saved – and the current winner becomes a loser.
It could truly be the case that Vladimir Putin has miscalculated in the long term with his adventure in Syria.
Vladimir Putin mainly has friends in Europe among the extreme right, such as Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France.
Values-oriented foreign policy of the free world would be much better, supported by the self-awareness of being on the right side of history.
The most hopeful approach to peace in Ukraine is the Minsk Agreement, which includes Moscow.
We are living in a new ice age, and we need to apply the recipes of the Cold War to the Kremlin. That means isolation instead of offers of negotiation. And Ukraine should have been supplied with weapons long ago.
Russia is a mafia state today, and Putin is its top godfather.
Vladimir Putin uses fascist propaganda to do so. From Ukraine to Syria, he is behaving like the world’s new general and celebrating victories, while the American president sits on the sidelines and Europe sleeps. The West’s behavior toward Putin is political and moral capitulation.
Vladimir Putin has this animalistic instinct of all dictators: He smells weakness. To quote Winston Churchill’s definition of appeasement: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
Moscow is simply unwilling to recognize the right of self-determination of nations.
I’m not paranoid, but I am cautious. I don’t drink tea with strangers, I don’t fly Aeroflot and I avoid certain countries with close ties to Russia.
The Kremlin is constantly changing the rules of the game to suit its purposes. We are not playing chess, we’re playing roulette.
I don’t really like discussions about a supposed Russian national character.
I now have Croatian citizenship, but I only accepted it because Croatia allowed me to keep my Russian passport.