[I]t's very important to understand that this is the dictators always operate short-term, and democracies must operate long-term because it’s not abo… - Garry Kasparov

Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature.

The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.

The implicit, or even explicit, offer made by authoritarians is stability in exchange for liberty. High oil prices allowed Putin to keep this bargain for a while, aided by an international community that lost interest in promoting liberty as soon as the Berlin Wall fell. Putin was welcomed by the G7 as an equal while destroying democracy and civil society at home. Imagine how difficult it was for us in Russia to attack Putin’s regime as undemocratic while he was being embraced by the leaders of the free world. Even Putin’s invasion of neighboring Georgia in August 2008 resulted in no censure or sanction. He was rewarded by Obama and Hillary Clinton’s reset a few months later, confirming to him that a move into Ukraine would also go unchallenged.