Putin’s Russia is a ‘mafia state’

Garry Kasparov needs no special introduction. He is considered the most recognizable chess grandmaster, as he held the title of world champion for 15 consecutive years (1985-2000). His deep understanding of the game and the intelligent complexity of his approach to his moves established him as a dominant player in a game that had become synonymous with the elite of Western countries. The Soviet Union's dominance of the chess world began in the late 1940s, and that dominance was recognizable to just about everyone, even those who had no idea about the citizens behind the Soviet Iron Curtain. In 1996 Kasparov was destined to go down in history as the first man to confront the machine and an early form of artificial intelligence, taking on IBM's Deep Blue computer, winning the first match, but losing a year later to its upgraded version.

A critic of Vladimir Putin and a human...