“Putin will soon turn his gaze toward other former Soviet states” - EXCLUSIVE interview with Garry Kasparov
“History has taught us a very simple axiom: The sooner the aggression is stopped, the lower the price for it will be”
Recently, the legendary chess Grandmaster and outspoken political opponent of the Kremlin, Garry Kasparov, compared the Russian President to Hitler and compared his threat to global safety to that of the Islamic State. According to Kasparov, if real measures are not taken against Putin, he will inflict far more damage to the civilized world than any other dictator.
In an exclusive interview with Georgian Journal, Kasparov discussed the issues concerning Russian-Ukrainian and Russian-Georgian relations.
“Had sanctions against the Kremlin been implemented at the beginning of 2014, lives of thousands of people in eastern Ukraine could have been saved.”
– In your recent publications, you have compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler and the Islamic State. What served as grounds for such statements?
– The fact that Putin represents a greater danger for America and the civilized world in general than the Islamic State or the Ebola virus. The damage Ebola can inflict to us is limited and it can be overcome with resources and proper strategy. Same goes for the Islamic State – it might be costly, but they can be defeated through military action. But all this does not apply to Putin: he cannot be defeated through war, because Russia owns the second largest supply of nuclear weapons in the world; this problem does not have a military solution. Once danger coming from Putin is acknowledged, measures should be taken accordingly.
“The main question, which will decide the future of the world, does not concern the events taking place in Iraq or Syria, but whether the West will manage to maintain sanctions against Russia.”
– Measures such as?
– The same that civilized society has used against all other dictators. When one single-handedly rules a country for 15 years, without any political parties involved, it is called dictatorship. Putin is a dictator of the same ilk as Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet and the North Korean leaders.
Hence, the West should react accordingly whenever a dictator is involved. Annexation of Crimea and of a good chunk of Ukraine was caused precisely by the West’s indifference and disregard towards Putin. If the West snapped out of it earlier and implemented unanimous sanctions in a timely fashion, things wouldn’t have reached such an extreme. Putin wouldn’t have gotten all steamed up the way he is now and the West wouldn’t have had to sweat over the financial losses that it is now experiencing after the EU member states have imposed sanctions upon Russia. Had sanctions against the Kremlin been implemented in the beginning of 2013, lives of thousands of people in eastern Ukraine could have been saved.
“I do not rule out a Western leader recognizing Crimea.”
