Kasparov

Recent Posts

Yahoo News Live: Kasparov: Putin must be stopped


By Alex Bregman

Garry Kasparov, world chess champion, human rights activist, and vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spoke to Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga on “Yahoo News Live” about his new book, “Winter Is Coming.” He gave his take on everything from Putin being named No. 1 on the Forbes magazine “Most Powerful People in the World” list for a third year in a row to which 2016 presidential candidate would be best suited to face the Russian leader.

On Putin being at the top of that list, Kasparov said, “‘Most influential man in the world’ doesn’t mean the most powerful man regarding the tools he or she can use. That should be Barack Obama.” He also told Golodryga that Putin is more dangerous than ISIS.

On the news today that the World Anti-Doping Agency found top Russian athletes have participated in a state-sponsored doping program for years, Kasparov was not surprised. He told Golodryga: “We know that all dictators wanted to generate a great success on the sport field … naturally, doping can reach this goal.”

When looking at the 2016 field of U.S. presidential candidates, Kasparov said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be the “most plausible and probably the most unpleasant for Putin.” He pointed to Rubio’s “Cuban roots” and called him a “fresh start.” He also noted that Hillary Clinton would be “very hawkish” toward Putin, but “there’s a history.”

Kasparov had harsh words for how President Obama has dealt with Putin. He said, “This administration basically did nothing and caused huge damage for the reputation of the United States in the world.”

Finally, Kasparov does not see Putin going anywhere anytime soon. He told Golodryga: “Anyone who could look like a successor would be dead very soon. We should accept as a fact … that chaos will follow Putin’s demise. Putin will stay in power for the rest of his life.”

GRETA TALK: Garry Kasparov is warning the world about Putin | On The Record with Greta Van Susteren

Screen Shot 2015-11-12 at 4.08.11 PM

Play

Garry Kasparov is an author, world’s greatest chess player, and as a Russian– he is not a fan of Vladimir Putin. He believes that Putin is “evil”, and discusses how he personally is a supporter of the democracy movement in his new book Winter is Coming:

“The stunning story of Russia’s slide back into a dictatorship—and how the West is now paying the price for allowing it to happen.”

In this edition of Greta Talk, Kasparov sat down with me to talk about the lack of strategy in US foreign policy, why we are the #1 target of Russian propaganda and why the America is facing so many threats today. Kasparov and I also lighten things up and chat about his love of chess and how starting to play at 6 years old helped him become the world champ!

“The Times: Book of the Week” | “Winter Is Coming” Book Review

Putin versus the pussyfooters

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 1.57.33 PMVladimir Putin’s foes are either dead, jailed, cowed into silence or — in the case of Garry Kasparov — in exile. That is bad enough. Even worse is that those who could stand up to the Kremlin fail to do so. The main target of this brave, trenchant and convincing book is not the thuggish and dangerous regime that misrules Russia, but the cowardly wishful thinking in the West that refuses to stop it.
The book is studded with allusions to the author’s beloved chess. If a player has a strong position—“attacking momentum” — but fails to use it, the other side’s counterattack is inevitable and will be very strong, he argues. For this reason the greatest mistake of the West, he claims, predates Putin’s rise to power in Russia in 1999. It was the failure to realise the scale and nature of the victory in 1991. Far from seeing the collapse of communism as the triumph of democracy, the rule of law and freedom, and a chance to advance our cause with redoubled energy, we instead settled down to make money.

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 12.58.32 PMThat initial mistake has been compounded by our timidity and greed. We are unwilling to see the scope of the threat that we face from anti-western forces such as Putin. Kasparov notes blisteringly: “The western rhetoric of appeasement creates a self-reinforcing loop of mental and moral corruption: speaking the truth now would mean confessing to many months of lies.”

The book gallops through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaotic 1990s and then charges full tilt at Vladimir Putin: a former KGB man who is a far more dangerous adversary than most outsiders realise. His rise to power in 1999 should have been a deafening alarm call to the West: as shocking as an ex-Gestapo officer coming to power in Germany.

 

READ FULL REVIEW AT THE TIMES

ORDER “WINTER IS COMING” ON AMAZON NOW!

Garry’s Timeline

Follow Garry's extraordinary path through years of relentless activism.

View the full Biography