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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're very happy to have the opportunity now to speak with chess master Russian dissident and global democracy advocate, Garry Kasparov. These days, among other things, he is chairman of the Renewed Democracy Initiative, which describes itself as a nonpartisan non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the public, to uphold constitutional principles in their civic behavior. He is also chairman of the group known as the Human Rights Foundation.

Maybe you saw Garry Kasparov's op-ed in the Daily News on Friday called How the Free World gave Putin the Green Light. He also notes that Ukraine is fighting hard. Putin's army is not invulnerable, and if aid arrives in time, Putin could find himself in a difficult situation. He also wrote a book in 2015 called Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.

Mr. Kasparov, I know you're very busy with this situation going on right now. Thank you for making some time for us today. Welcome to WNYC.

Garry Kasparov: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Brian Lehrer: You're arguing you're op-ed that the west, in effect, invaded Ukraine, not just Russia because Europe kept doing economic business as usual with Putin after he invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea from there in 2014. You wrote another op-ed published in the Daily News back then. I mentioned your book from 2015, Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin, and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped. Are you in the unenviable position today of saying I told you so?

Garry Kasparov: Yes, but it doesn't make me feel happy. I'm watching the latest development in Ukraine, and it's a tragedy. It's even more tragedy because it could be avoided if this warnings were not ignored because we saw Putin's plans. He was not hiding them since 2007 when he made his infamous speech in Munich at Security conference in Europe. He was not hiding his plan to reorganize the international order and to bring us back to the past, to the 19th century where big countries could dictate smaller countries how to behave and run their domestic and international affairs.

He backed his words by actions, attacking the Republic of Georgia in 2008, helping Bashar al-Assad to survive in 2013, carpet bombing Aleppo and others rebel stronghold in Syria, and of course, annexing Crimea. He has been preparing war in Ukraine in plain sight. That's why if this help could be sent to Ukraine six months ago, I think we could have avoided the worst, but now it's time to forget what went wrong in the past and to unite behind Ukraine. That's what is happening. I have to say that the last few days they were absolutely critical in changing public opinion in the free world and also the policies of all major countries.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be clear, when you say his infamous statement from 2007 in Munich, was that when he said, "The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century"?

Garry Kasparov: Actually, he said it earlier. Back in 2007, he actually supported this claim by laying down his vision, that we should go back to the spheres of influence and reiterated his claim that the Soviet Union had to be reinstated in some form. He believed, and he still believes that a Russian dictator is in the position to control not only so-called near abroad, the neighboring countries, but also, to spread influence across Eastern Europe.

Brian Lehrer: You make the ultimate comparison in your Daily News op-ed between that statement and the publication of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler in 1925. Why go all the way to Hitler?

Garry Kasparov: No, because the parallels are natural. In 1925, nobody took Hitler seriously and Vladimir Putin made more than enough statements and committed enough crimes for us to understand the danger coming from this man. He started war in Ukraine, and let's not forget unlike Hitler, he has nukes. Yesterday ordered Russian nuclear forces to change the status, go on so-called deterrence regime.

Every dictator, before going down could bring with him millions and millions of people. I think we wasted a lot of time, not recognizing danger coming from Vladimir Putin because back in 1935, 1936, 1937, many European and American politicians viewed Hitler as a populist demagogue authoritarian leader but the man they could do business with. The same mistake has been repeated with Putin but unlike the politicians in the 1930s, many in Europe, less in America, mostly in Europe, they were not simply ignoring Putin, they were doing business with him.

Brian Lehrer: If Putin always intended to capture Ukraine, why did it take him all these years to try to do it including eight years after the invasion and annexation of Crimea?

Garry Kasparov: Dictators are always looking for opportunities. I say that they will never ask why. It's always why not? He tried in 2014, but he was not ready for open invasion. There were maps published in Russia that included about one-third of Ukraine as so-called new Russia, from east on Luhansk to all way down south to Odessa and that's included 10 Ukrainian regions, but unlike Putin's expectations, Ukrainian people were not ready to embrace Russian troops. He tried, but he failed, and he wasn't ready to send the Russian army to subdue Ukraine, but every year, every month, every day in the office, and every time that he committed crime, and so no consequences involving him.

In 2022, he decided that the moment has come. Actually, he has been preparing this war for more than six months. He even brought his Pacific fleet to the black sea. It was all in plain sight. The reason he did it was because he thought that he could win the war in two or three days, take over Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, put his puppet government and the free world would back to the negotiating table. He made many miscalculations as every dictator made in the past. Ukrainian army is still fighting back. Ukrainian people are showing their heroism and resilience, and the free world, first time, now is willing to fight back.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some questions or comments for Garry Kasparov on the Russia-Ukraine situation, 212-433-WNYC. If you want to call in 212-433-9692 or you can tweet Brian Lehrer. Let's talk about what's happening right now. Mr. Kasparov, sanctions for economic pressure and other forms of isolation are being ratcheted up day by day now, as you note, including some of the latest that maybe even our listeners haven't heard, Russian airplanes now being banned from EU airspace, sanctions against Russian banks, and individually, against some Russian oligarchs money in the west.

I see the ruble fell 30% today against other currencies and Russian banks double their interest rates to crippling 20%. There are some sanctions now against Putin personally. I don't know if he has any money in the west that that can be enforced against. Is this, in your view, not just different, as you said a minute ago, but is it something that could affect, or a collection of things, that could affect what Putin does next?

Garry Kasparov: Yes, it's not that we saw before. Before it was more like a lip service, trying to modify public opinion. The sanctions that were imposed in 2014, they didn't really hurt Putin's oligarchs, and the core areas of Russian economy. Today, it's all different because the sanctions included the Central Bank of Russia and probably within next couple of weeks, the ruble will be worthless. Also, the free world now is pushing the total isolation of Russia at every level, from political to sport organizations. Of course, now it's full support to Ukraine from military aid to humanitarian aid and, as you just mentioned, Russia is being cut from the free world and many countries are joining this ban for Russian carrier Aeroflot and Russian registered planes to enter their airspace.

It's a combination of factors that should lead to the bankruptcy of Putin's regime and without money, he cannot fund the war. Also, he cannot support the police, the police that they need so badly, because the last four days, tens of thousand people in Russia they are making it to the streets despite the fact that Putin regime doesn't reduce the brutality of treating these people and many of them are arrested and probably will be spending years in jail.

Propaganda machine, Putin also needs money for his propaganda and many of the loudspeaker is propaganda. The famous journalists who have been promoting Putin's lies, they now found themselves cut from Europe because they banned from entering Europe. Also, EU already banned Russia Today, another Putin's outlet, Sputnik, from transmitting these lies to European countries.

Brian Lehrer: On the economic sanctions against oligarchs, Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column, and others including Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine, are saying things like, "The US has to be willing to take some economic hits in this country from really sanctioning the Russian moguls who live here, have money here." Are you focused at all on what that would require of the US or even New York and at what cost?

Garry Kasparov: Look, there's always a cost when you're at war but this cost is financial. Don't forget, Ukrainians are paying a cost with lives as we speak now because in the last 24 hours, Putin changed his tactics. It's no longer an attempt to subdue Ukraine with minimal casualties because in the first three days, Russian troops tried to avoid direct hits to the civil population and now, it's about scorched-earth. Now, they're attacking civilians and that shows that Putin is desperate and he wants to win at any cost.

If Putin succeeds, God forbid, in Ukraine, that means that he will look at the NATO countries like Estonia. Then, America will be facing a horrible dilemma to relinquish NATO and just walk away and let Putin win or to put boots on the ground because that's NATO charter. Fighting in Ukraine today actually offers an opportunity to beat Putin and to ruin his criminal regime by not sacrificing American lives. As for the gas price or other costs, yes. By the way, Europe will pay a much steeper price because unlike America, it depends on Putin's gas supply and Europeans are willing to take this cost. I think it's very important to recognize while the price is high today, it will be much, much higher if we miss the opportunity to stop Putin now.

Brian Lehrer: Nora on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with chess master and longtime Russian dissident and global democracy advocate, Garry Kasparov. Hi, Nora.

Nora: Hi, good morning. I'm sorry, this question is probably going to sound very stupid. I myself and I've heard several people say that Mr. Putin has been playing chess for the last several years. I heard Mr. Kasparov say that that's a wrong analogy, that he's really playing poker and I don't understand.

Brian Lehrer: Want to go there?

Garry Kasparov: Thank you very much. That's a very good question because it brings parallels from the board games. It also explains the nature of Putin regime. Chess is a game where you have 100% information available. You know exactly what kind of pieces your opponent can use. It's in front of you and you know that it's played by the rules. You make a move and your opponent makes a move, and it's all follow the rules of the game. In poker, you don't know the cards. It's a game where you can make your educated guess, you can look at the opponent's face. It has plenty of psychology and Putin was very good in bluffing.

He always had a weak hand but he knew how to bluff and yet, unfortunately, so much money and other resources to raise the stakes. Many times in the past, he bluffed and the free world folded the cards. Now, he decided to bluff again but this time, Americans and Europeans said, "Okay, fine. Show us what you have." We all discover that Putin's hand was weak.

Brian Lehrer: There's no bluffing or facial strategy in chess?

Garry Kasparov: There's no bluffing because you know exactly what resources you're opponent can use to harm you. Psychology, yes, it's there because, at the end of the day, every decision-making is psychological but again, it's nothing like poker. This is because there are so many objective factors that you have to take into account but again, looking at your opponent face and analyzing the nature of his or her decision-making, it's fundamental even in the game of chess, but in poker, it's paramount.

Brian Lehrer: George in Haslett, you're on WNYC. Hi, George.

George: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. [crosstalk]

George: Why should we care about Ukraine? They didn't mess with us when we went into Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or everywhere else we went. We don't care about Yemen. We don't care about Palestinian people. We don't care about anybody. What does Ukraine mean to us besides gas? What do we care about Ukrainian anymore than we've cared about anything else? Why should we mess with Putin after he let us go invading half the Middle East? I don't understand why we're going to start World War III over Ukraine.

Let him steal his oil that's close to him. We stole the oil that we could get. Let him take what he can get and let's leave it at that. Let the big boys lose a couple of rounds today. Let United States lose one for the team instead of going to war like we always do, like we're some kind of benevolent people when we've been slaughtering people, supplying the weapons. His weapons guys have to get rid of their weapons too. They have to use their bombs too so they could sell more. He's going in to get rid of some bombs and kill some people, so what? That's what we do. That's what America does. Why are we stopping him from doing it?

Brian Lehrer: First of all, I'm sure you want to respond to that, Mr. Kasparov, but I'm also curious, how much you're hearing questions like that?

Garry Kasparov: It's unfortunate that I hear it all the time. Sometimes, it's ignorance. It's very little information about the rest of the world. I hope that's the case behind this question that we heard now. Sometimes, it's worse. It's believed that the world should actually live by the rules that Mr. Putin, Russian dictator, wanted to impose. Actually, I heard a little bit of this tone in the question when I heard these words, "big boys."

That's not the world we want to live in. We are trying to change the world. We're trying to make it more just. We're looking for the world with less violence, less violence. We're talking about racial justice, social justice. You cannot do it just separately in our country and ignoring the fact that the rest of the world, and people like me and millions and millions of us, still look at America as a beacon of hope. America is not perfect but don't tell me that the problems here, they are so bad, America doesn't have rights to look around the world and still to lead the world.

We are facing crimes that's hard to even describe. We're still talking about the Uighur genocide in China, and many other things. The war in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It's about the future of the world where either we'll live by rule of law or dictators and terrorists and thugs like Putin, or [unintelligible 00:17:43], or Chinese communists, or name them, will dictate us how to live. I believe that people have equal rights to live and to realize their potential whether they're born in Afghanistan or in New York, whether they are leaving in Ukraine or in Great Britain.

I feel really bad because one hour ago, I had an interview for Ukrainian TV. They're doing it from a bunker in Kyiv now and these people are dying. The Russian cassette bombs, illegal by the way, it's a criminal weapon, being used to shell these civilian apartments in Kharkiv and Kyiv. It's a war that could change the world for better or for worse. By the way, I just said 10 minutes ago, and that's a question to the person who asked the question, do you want to relinquish NATO? That's what Donald Trump's plan if he was reelected. Do you want to walk away?

Then, you recognize that America First could be not a very lucrative alternative because America's power is based on global trade and globalization that includes all the elements. It means America leadership and I hope it's being recovered now. I am very happy to see Americans and Europeans working together to stop Russian dictator who could change our world for worse for many years to come.

Brian Lehrer: If Putin does continue his march and go into, let's say, the Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia, which are NATO members, that question may be very, very salient and people like George in Haslett are going to be present, maybe that's the word, in terms of what the conversation could become. If Putin wants to push it that far, what are Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to Americans to go and die for as NATO nations that were contractually obligated to do that if they're invaded?

I'm curious how you see some of the other enablers of Putin. For example, he has defenders to some degree on the right in the United States and to some degree on the left, and I'm curious how different you see their motivations to be. For example, we had Katrina vanden Heuvel on this program on Friday, publisher of the Nation Magazine, as well as Washington Post columnist. I'm sure who she is. She has almost nothing else in common with say Donald Trump who's out there defending Putin. Pick these apart for us, if you can.

Garry Kasparov: Look, the history often repeats itself. Let's go back to the '30s, and you had many Americans that didn't want to be involved in global affairs for different reasons. You had the left on one side, the communist and you had the far-right, very much based on anti-semitism. In New York, we saw this recently. We can see pictures of thousands of people, gathering at Madison Square Garden, as a part of the American-German friendship society.

I think now it's, it's a very strange combination, a strange bedfellows. We can also talk about Tulsi Gabbard appearing and Tucker Carlson program. Yes, you're right. They have different motivations, but now they get together because they do not believe in the fundamental values of the free world we do. They have different ideas. We could see regular attacks on the liberal democracy on the right. We see, vicious attacks on capitalism and a free market from the left, but this is the moment where they understand that Putin's failure and success of Ukraine in defeating Putin could, actually, to the world, where America's influence based on the values that are universal, could actually, leave them on the fringes where they belong.

I think it's, quite unfortunate that over the last decade, we saw the rise of the influence of the radicals on the left and the right in America that are just having so much impact on political decisions here. I think that's also why America's fight, for justice in the world is important because it's very important to demonstrate to American public that the world is struggling against Putin and other thugs and terrorists and dictators. It has an impact in America. You cannot protect your own democracy, which is worth fighting for while ignoring democracy worldwide is in great danger.

Brian Lehrer: We certainly could have another conversation, which we won't have now about whether the rise of the left in this country is the moral equivalent to the rise of the far-right in this country. You implied that it was We won't go there. I will acknowledge to our listeners that's another conversation that we don't take as a given. Let me touch two other things with you real quick. I know we're about at your end time, what about other autocrats? It seemed like Trump was trying to reinvent the world order when he was president so that rather than the democracies of Europe and elsewhere being our prime allies and foreign policy, it was autocrats of the world who would unite around their common interest in post-democracy power Putin, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Xi Jinping before COVID, Erdogan, Orban, I could go on. Is there an autocrats network uniting behind Putin now in any way that matters?

Garry Kasparov: It's not as simple because, for instance, Erdogan now is helping Ukraine. Orban Swiss Cheese, he had to support the sanctions because Hungary is a member of European Union and Orban is facing elections, where he can lose in April. You're right, four years of Trump helped autocrats to see America as not an ally, but as no longer a force that could stop them from spreading their influence. Naturally, it's not accidental that over the last 15 years, we saw the decrease of democratic influence around the world.

The freedom house is telling us that less and less people live in a free world. Even if you include India now in the world of democracy, it's still one short of the global population that live in countries where they can have certain amount of influence on their governments.

Brian Lehrer: Just briefly, I wonder if you would say a word about President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. I mentioned Katrina vanden Heuvel coming on the show on Friday, and she certainly denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but she also sort of smeared both Ukraine, calling it a failed state, and said President Zelenskyy is not his own man, suggesting, I guess, that he's bought by powerful interests. I thought all of that was, at best, irrelevant to Putin's right to invade, but how would you describe Zelenskyy who is looking like something of a hero today, refusing to be evacuated to safety, saying he wants military aid, not a ride.

Garry Kasparov: He is not looking like a hero. He is a hero, and the fact is that he decided to stay in Kyiv facing mortal threats, because we know that Putin's troops have an order to decapitate, as they say, Ukrainian government, and I believe it's not just simply removing them from power. The fact that he stayed in Kyiv helped to keep the morale of Ukraine Army high and they're fighting back. What you just told us now about the comments that are so typical from the left, about Ukraine being a failed state, it's bad. This is a nation of 44 million people. They're proud people. Yes, and they now recognize that they are facing the greatest challenge in their lives and they're fighting back. They're fighting back not only for them but for all of us.

It's very unfortunate in America or in Europe, we still have people who deny their rights to be independent and free. Putin knows that the free democratic, independent Ukraine is the deadly threat to his dictatorship because people in Russia could recognize that their cousins, people on the other side of the border, they could decide how to choose their government. Since 1994 Ukraine kept changing presidents, and that's unfortunately, never happened in Russia because in 1994, first Ukrainian president, Leonid Kravchuk, lost elections and peacefully left his office. It hasn't happened in Russia.

Let's not forget, in 1994, under pressure from the United States, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal, the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. 2,000 nuclear warheads that were sent back to Russia in exchange-- Ukraine was guaranteed its territorial integrity. Unfortunately, the free world didn't keep its word and, of course, Putin threw this in the dust bin because dictators never respect international agreements.

Brian Lehrer:Garry Kasparov, probably, still best known as a chess master, but also very well known to people who pay attention as a global democracy advocate, as well as Russian dissonant. He is the chairman of the group called the Renewed Democracy Initiative. Among other things, he published the book in 2015, Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped. Thank you so much for giving us some time today on this very important day.

Garry Kasparov: Thank you very much for inviting me.

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