Latest news with #former-Soviet
The Guardian
22-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘It's blackmail': Ukrainians react to Trump demand for $500bn share of minerals
Drawing in the snow with his finger, Mykola Hrechukha sketched out how Ukraine's new lithium mine might look. It would have a deep central shaft, with a series of side tunnels, he said. 'The lithium is good everywhere. The biggest concentration is at a depth of 200-500 metres,' he said. 'We should be able to extract 4,300 tonnes a day. The potential is terrific.' For now, though, there is little sign of activity. The deposit is buried under a large sloping field, used in communist times to grow beetroot and wheat. The mine's proposed entrance is in an abandoned former-Soviet village, Liodiane, today a scruffy grove of acacia and maple trees. The only inhabitant is a security guard, who lives on the 150-hectare site in an ancient Gaz-53 truck. Wild boar and even a wolf sometimes wander past. The lithium deposit is located in central Ukraine's Kirovohrad region, about 350km (217 miles) south of the capital, Kyiv. Solar-powered scientific instruments measure air temperature and seismic activity. In 2017 a Ukrainian company, UkrLithiumMining, bought a government licence to exploit the site for 20 years. It cost $5m. Geological surveys confirm that the ore, known as petalite, can be used to produce batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones. According to the US president, Donald Trump, these underground reserves should now belong to America. Last week, the new US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, visited Kyiv. He presented Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with a surprise claim to half of Ukraine's mineral wealth, as well as to its oil, gas, and infrastructure such as ports. The $500bn bill was 'payback' for previous US military assistance to Ukraine, the White House explained. Zelenskyy refused to sign the agreement. He made it clear Washington had to give security guarantees before any deal could be reached on the country's vast natural resources, about 5% of global mineral reserves. He also pointed out that the US had given $69.2bn in military aid – less than the sum Trump was now demanding – and added that other partners such as the EU, Canada and the UK might be interested in investing, too. Speaking on Wednesday, shortly before Trump called him 'a dictator', Zelenskyy said he could not 'sell Ukraine away'. He was willing to work on 'a serious document', he said, which ensured Russia did not attack Ukraine again. US and Ukrainian negotiators were seeking to move past the spectacular breakdown in transatlantic relations and to finalise a deal, Bloomberg said on Friday. Commentators have described Trump's aggressive ultimatum as 'mafia imperialism', a 'colonial agreement', and reminiscent of what the Europeans did in the 18th century when they carved up Africa. 'It's as if we lost the war to America. This looks to me like reparations,' Volodymyr Landa, a senior economist at the Centre for Economic Strategy thinktank in Kyiv, said. Ukraine's overall reserves are worth $14.8tn. They include lithium, titanium and uranium, as well as coal, steel, iron ore, and undersea shale gas. Many deposits had not been developed, Landa said, either because they were not feasible or due to political instability. Others are in areas occupied by Russia. Ukraine's lithium deposits – about 500,000 tonnes' worth – are among the biggest in Europe. One site is in Kruta Balka, near the southern port of Berdiansk, which the Kremlin occupied early in its 2022 invasion. Another is in the Shevchenkivskyi district, on the frontline in the eastern Donetsk oblast. Russian troops recently took control of the area. The deposit in Liodiane is one of two under Ukrainian control. According to Landa, Ukraine's minerals sector has 'high risks and high rewards'. There is a long history of foreign investment, he said, with French, Belgian and British engineers developing the country's coal industry in the 19th century. The city of Donetsk – seized by Russia in 2014 – was originally named Hughesovka, after the Welsh businessman John Hughes, who founded a steel plant and several coalmines in the region. Residents living near Liodiane said they supported the construction of a new lithium mine. They were not, however, ready to give the profits to Trump. 'This idea is too much,' Tetiana Slyvenko, a local administrator, said. 'He wants to take resources from a country in a time of war. How are we supposed to live? We have children. It's as if the US seeks to deprive us of our economic potential. It would finish us off, the same as America did with Red Indians [Native Americans].' Slyvenko said Russian rockets flew regularly over her village of Kopanky, in the Malovyskiy district, on their way to targets in western Ukraine. In December, she filmed three streaking overhead from her garden. 'I said a few bad words. The rockets were flying very low. We are tired. Our emotions are understandably strong,' she said. Two weeks ago, a shaheed missile crashed in a nearby field, not far from the shallow valley where the lithium is buried. About 300 people live in the neighbouring villages of Kopanky and Haiivka, most of them elderly. Breaking off from ice fishing on Kopanky's picturesque frozen lake, 72-year-old Stanislav Ryabchenko said he hoped the mine would bring young people back to the community and create jobs. 'What Trump suggests is blackmail. He knows we can't push the Russians out on our own. We need joint production, not a takeover,' he said, showing off two carp. Denys Alyoshin, UkrLithiumMining's chief strategy officer, said his company was looking for foreign investment. It would cost $350m to build a new and modern mine, in accordance with EU environmental standards, he said. He acknowledged that construction could begin only once Russia's war against Ukraine was over. Ideally, he said, Ukraine would process the ore in country into a concentrate. This would then be refined into battery-grade lithium carbonate. Trump has said he wants a share of 'rare earths', a class of 17 minerals. In fact, Ukraine has few of these. The US president appears to have confused them with rare metals and critical materials, such as lithium and graphite. Alyoshin said there was a further misconception that quick profits could be made. 'People think you put a shovel in the ground and dig up money. We have been working on this project for five or six years. With investment we can begin production in 2028,' he said. Back in Liodiane, the only sound was birdsong. In the 1960s and 70s the village was home to agricultural labourers working in a kolkhoz, a Soviet collective farm. There were two streets, a cluster of clay-and-straw houses and a community centre known as the 'Club'. The last inhabitant died in 1983. In the pre-electric vehicle era, lithium was used in the ceramic and glass industries. Soviet geologists discovered the seam half a century ago, but decided it was not worth exploiting. Hrechukha, the mining company's local representative, said there was a ready available workforce, after a uranium mine 20km down the road in the town of Smolino was decommissioned last year. His firm was keen to cooperate with outside partners, he stressed, but only on the basis of international law. He said he respected the world's richest man, Elon Musk, whose Tesla car business required lithium. 'We are interested in a long-term client,' he said. In the meantime, the US was far away. 'I don't think US soldiers are going to be coming here anytime soon,' Hrechukha predicted, surveying the white field. He added: 'It's more likely aliens from another planet will turn up.'
CNN
17-02-2025
- Sport
- CNN
Kasparov, Karpov and the KGB? 40 years on from the most controversial chess match of all time
Russian-born chess grandmaster and émigré Gennadi 'Genna' Sosonko still remembers where he was 40 years ago today, when he heard that the 1984-85 World Championship match in Moscow between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov had been abandoned. 'I couldn't come to the Soviet Union, of course. I was an enemy as (far as they were) concerned,' he says in an interview with CNN Sport. 'I remember that day very well because I was in Switzerland, and I was together with (dissident and fellow grandmaster) Viktor Korchnoi, helping him to prepare for one of his own matches. We were listening to the Swiss radio, we were analyzing the opposition, when we heard that (FIDE President Florencio) Campomanes stopped the match. 'Well, well, well, how is this possible?'' The match had lasted five months, longer than any other World Championship before or since. Somewhere along the way, the contest had picked up some sort of symbolic value, an understanding that the result would reflect the future of the Soviet Union as a whole. If Karpov won, it would be a sign of life for the old guard in a country which seemed to be slipping towards inevitable dissolution. If Kasparov won, it would be confirmation that times were changing, that something fresh and exciting and terrifying was coming. But to be abandoned, without a winner, after 48 grueling games? What did that mean? In terms of popularity, chess in the Soviet Union was akin to the NFL in the US. 'It was more than just a kind of sport,' says Sosonko. 'Chess in Russia was a kind of religion. It was much more than just a game with 64 squares and 32 pieces. 'The names of Karpov, the names of (Mikhail) Tal, (Tigran) Petrosian and others were known by everybody, even the people who never played chess.' The dominance enjoyed by Soviet players during the second half of the 20th century is hard to overstate. FIDE organized its first World Championship in 1948, and from then until the end of the century, 23 championship matches were played. Only one was not won by a Soviet or former-Soviet citizen – Bobby Fischer in 1972. Under the likes of Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov, the Soviet Union was well-known for its extensive use of propaganda, including the promotion of elite sportspeople like ice hockey star Vladislav Tretiak and soccer goalkeeper Lev Yashin. With the Cold War bubbling away and the USSR looking for any opportunity to promote Soviet ideals on the world stage, chess players were no different. Their supremacy in the sport was fueled, in part, by the fact that they were looked after exceptionally well by the state. 'The conditions for the players were such that you couldn't compare it with the tournaments in the West,' Sosonko recalls. 'They had carte blanche in all restaurants, all hotels, unbelievable fees in dollars and hard currency. It was absolutely phenomenal in the Soviet Union.' By the time 1984 came around, Karpov – a three-time world champion and a symbol of Soviet ideals – had been the prized asset for a decade. 'He was a really Russian guy from Ural, and he represented our country with glamor, with everything and so on,' explains Sosonko. 'He was a god in Russia.' As one of the few Soviet players who was able to play tournaments abroad and collect prize money in the local currency, Karpov was also 'one of the richest people in the country,' according to Sosonko. 'He was one of the three or maybe four people in all of the Soviet Union who got a Mercedes car. One was Brezhnev, (singer Vladimir) Vysotsky, and the third one was Anatoly Karpov. 'The privileges that he got, you cannot imagine. He couldn't compare with anybody in Russia.' Even at that time in the Soviet Union, everybody knew that Kasparov was young, ambitious. Not a dissident, but someone who was representative of the new wave.' Gennadi "Genna" Sosonko, Russian-born chess grandmaster Kasparov, on the other hand, could not have been viewed more differently. 'He had a couple of weaknesses in the eyes of the big Party guys and the sport committee,' says Sosonko. 'Namely, he was not a Russian, he was half-Jew and half-Armenian, and he came from Baku. The Soviet Union was very antisemitic.' Despite having some ties to the Azerbaijani Communist Party's First Secretary – and future president of Azerbaijan – Heydar Aliyev, the young challenger was not nearly as loyal to the Party as Karpov. 'Even at that time in the Soviet Union, everybody knew that Kasparov was young, ambitious. Not a dissident, but someone who was representative of the new wave,' says Sosonko. 'His friends were actors, not dissidents – however, dissidents as well – but people who were not for the regime. (Whereas) Karpov was a really hard guard of the Soviet society at that time.' Karpov's conservatism and Kasparov's radical nature were both present in their chess. 'There was something of a clash of titans here, in stylistic view,' Andrew Soltis, American grandmaster and chess historian, tells CNN Sport. 'Kasparov represented a more aggressive, dynamic style. 'He was a contrast with Karpov, who was somewhat more conservative. He played a waiting game often. He specialized in improving his position gradually until it became overwhelming. Karpov rarely won a game in fewer than 30 moves. Kasparov reveled in winning games very quickly. 'No one was indifferent. You were either a Karpov fan or a Kasparov fan. There was no middle ground.' Played under the competition's old rules, where the champion is the first to win six games and draws are worth nothing, the 1984 World Chess Championship began on September 10. Nine games and 25 days in, Karpov had established a seemingly unassailable 4-0 lead. As Kasparov began to get more of a handle on the match, the next 17 games were drawn, before Karpov won again in game 27 to put himself one win away from victory. But the champion was not playing like he had been at the start of the match. He had started to make mistakes and, in game 32, Kasparov finally notched a victory. 'Karpov thought that he could win the match just by sitting back and waiting for his opponent to blunder, and that may have worked at the beginning, but Kasparov recovered remarkably. He didn't emotionally collapse the way many of Karpov's opponents did,' explains Soltis. 'Eventually, the strain got to Karpov and he began to make really bad moves. He became unnerved.' The next 14 games were tied, but in games 47 and 48, Kasparov won two in a row to pull the score back to 5-3. Suddenly, Karpov was floundering. Was his opponent really about to come back and win the match? 'Definitely, the momentum had shifted to Kasparov,' says Soltis. 'I think he would probably have at least gotten to a situation where they both had five victories. And the final, if that happened, I would have bet heavily on Kasparov. I think that Karpov had become a shell of the player that he once was. 'The Karpov that began that match in 1984 was not the Karpov that ended the match in 1985.' The intensity of the situation was apparently getting to the reigning champion, who lost 22 pounds over the course of the match. 'Karpov was obviously getting very tired. He was exhausted. He wasn't sleeping well. According to his aides, he was getting to sleep at midnight early in the match, and then it was 2 a.m. and then it was 4 a.m. He was clearly getting weaker and weaker,' says Soltis. '(He) wasn't very heavy to begin with. He's a small guy, relatively, and he was just wasting away.' It was at this point, with Kasparov apparently having turned the tide and both players keen to continue, that Campomanes took one of the most infamous decisions in chess history. He flew to Moscow and, citing the health of the players, announced that he was abandoning the match. The ruling, he added, was supported by the Soviet Chess Federation. In the 40 years since, there has never been a definitive answer as to whether Campomanes – who has since been referred to as 'Karpovmanes' in some circles – had any ulterior motive when he made the decision. In Sosonko's mind, the reasoning is clear. 'FIDE, the international chess organization, was completely under the influence of the Soviet Union,' he says. 'We knew, of course, that Campomanes was on the side of the Soviets.' When contacted for comment, current FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky told CNN that Sosonko's claims were 'rather inaccurate.' While admitting that the Soviets did have a lot of influence, he pointed out that there was a lot of tension between FIDE and the USSR Chess Federation, particularly between 1983 and 1985. There was this invisible hand that was benefiting Karpov.' Andy Soltis, American grandmaster and chess historian There have even been suggestions from some that Campomanes, who passed away in 2010, was an agent of the KGB, an argument Sosonko believes is an oversimplification. ''KGB agent' is a hard definition – that he got some money or some instructions. I don't think so. But he was on the Soviet side, in all aspects,' he says. Soltis points out that Campomanes had previously taken decisions in other tournaments that had hindered Soviet players and calls the notion that Campomanes was KGB 'absurd.' However, he does also believe that decisions throughout the match seemed to favor Karpov. 'The postponements, I think, were the critical point here,' he explains. 'Normally, players can ask for a postponement of a game in those days because of illness, and the players had exhausted their number of days they could take. And then there were these mysterious postponements that the government or the chess officials ordered. 'There was no real explanation. So there was this invisible hand that was benefiting Karpov.' There was, recalls Soltis, a shift in the FIDE President's reputation during the match: 'At one point, it seemed like Campomanes was standing firm, that he was an enemy of the Soviets. 'But during this match, the perception changed, and it would seem that Campomanes was actually playing a double game. He was really helping Karpov, he was helping the Soviet Chess Federation which really wanted to get this thing over with, and he was trying to find a solution. 'Nobody knows what's going on in Campomanes' mind, and he's dead now, so he'll never tell.' While the answer to this specific question is likely to be lost to history, what has happened since will inevitably inform how 1984-85 is viewed. Kasparov won the rematch later that year, then beat Karpov again in each of the next three World Championships, and is now known as one of the greatest players ever. Perhaps even more crucially though, present-day Russia is using sports to promote its interests throughout the world. 'I think the Russians are trying to use sports as a political weapon. I think that's definitely true: a leopard can't change its spots,' says Soltis. '(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is, well, a former KGB agent,' he continues. 'Nowadays, with the sports boycott of the Russians, they're in a very difficult position, and they're trying to claw their way back into chess, and into sports in general. '(In the Soviet Union) they were using sports and chess which, of course, is considered a sport in Russia and always will be, for their own benefit. And I suspect you're going to see this for many years to come.'
CNN
15-02-2025
- Sport
- CNN
Kasparov, Karpov and the KGB? 40 years on from the most controversial chess match of all time
Russian-born chess grandmaster and émigré Gennadi 'Genna' Sosonko still remembers where he was 40 years ago today, when he heard that the 1984-85 World Championship match in Moscow between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov had been abandoned. 'I couldn't come to the Soviet Union, of course. I was an enemy as (far as they were) concerned,' he says in an interview with CNN Sport. 'I remember that day very well because I was in Switzerland, and I was together with (dissident and fellow grandmaster) Viktor Korchnoi, helping him to prepare for one of his own matches. We were listening to the Swiss radio, we were analyzing the opposition, when we heard that (FIDE President Florencio) Campomanes stopped the match. 'Well, well, well, how is this possible?'' The match had lasted five months, longer than any other World Championship before or since. Somewhere along the way, the contest had picked up some sort of symbolic value, an understanding that the result would reflect the future of the Soviet Union as a whole. If Karpov won, it would be a sign of life for the old guard in a country which seemed to be slipping towards inevitable dissolution. If Kasparov won, it would be confirmation that times were changing, that something fresh and exciting and terrifying was coming. But to be abandoned, without a winner, after 48 grueling games? What did that mean? In terms of popularity, chess in the Soviet Union was akin to the NFL in the US. 'It was more than just a kind of sport,' says Sosonko. 'Chess in Russia was a kind of religion. It was much more than just a game with 64 squares and 32 pieces. 'The names of Karpov, the names of (Mikhail) Tal, (Tigran) Petrosian and others were known by everybody, even the people who never played chess.' The dominance enjoyed by Soviet players during the second half of the 20th century is hard to overstate. FIDE organized its first World Championship in 1948, and from then until the end of the century, 23 championship matches were played. Only one was not won by a Soviet or former-Soviet citizen – Bobby Fischer in 1972. Under the likes of Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov, the Soviet Union was well-known for its extensive use of propaganda, including the promotion of elite sportspeople like ice hockey star Vladislav Tretiak and soccer goalkeeper Lev Yashin. With the Cold War bubbling away and the USSR looking for any opportunity to promote Soviet ideals on the world stage, chess players were no different. Their supremacy in the sport was fueled, in part, by the fact that they were looked after exceptionally well by the state. 'The conditions for the players were such that you couldn't compare it with the tournaments in the West,' Sosonko recalls. 'They had carte blanche in all restaurants, all hotels, unbelievable fees in dollars and hard currency. It was absolutely phenomenal in the Soviet Union.' By the time 1984 came around, Karpov – a three-time world champion and a symbol of Soviet ideals – had been the prized asset for a decade. 'He was a really Russian guy from Ural, and he represented our country with glamor, with everything and so on,' explains Sosonko. 'He was a god in Russia.' As one of the few Soviet players who was able to play tournaments abroad and collect prize money in the local currency, Karpov was also 'one of the richest people in the country,' according to Sosonko. 'He was one of the three or maybe four people in all of the Soviet Union who got a Mercedes car. One was Brezhnev, (singer Vladimir) Vysotsky, and the third one was Anatoly Karpov. 'The privileges that he got, you cannot imagine. He couldn't compare with anybody in Russia.' Even at that time in the Soviet Union, everybody knew that Kasparov was young, ambitious. Not a dissident, but someone who was representative of the new wave.' Gennadi "Genna" Sosonko, Russian-born chess grandmaster Kasparov, on the other hand, could not have been viewed more differently. 'He had a couple of weaknesses in the eyes of the big Party guys and the sport committee,' says Sosonko. 'Namely, he was not a Russian, he was half-Jew and half-Armenian, and he came from Baku. The Soviet Union was very antisemitic.' Despite having some ties to the Azerbaijani Communist Party's First Secretary – and future president of Azerbaijan – Heydar Aliyev, the young challenger was not nearly as loyal to the Party as Karpov. 'Even at that time in the Soviet Union, everybody knew that Kasparov was young, ambitious. Not a dissident, but someone who was representative of the new wave,' says Sosonko. 'His friends were actors, not dissidents – however, dissidents as well – but people who were not for the regime. (Whereas) Karpov was a really hard guard of the Soviet society at that time.' Karpov's conservatism and Kasparov's radical nature were both present in their chess. 'There was something of a clash of titans here, in stylistic view,' Andrew Soltis, American grandmaster and chess historian, tells CNN Sport. 'Kasparov represented a more aggressive, dynamic style. 'He was a contrast with Karpov, who was somewhat more conservative. He played a waiting game often. He specialized in improving his position gradually until it became overwhelming. Karpov rarely won a game in fewer than 30 moves. Kasparov reveled in winning games very quickly. 'No one was indifferent. You were either a Karpov fan or a Kasparov fan. There was no middle ground.' Played under the competition's old rules, where the champion is the first to win six games and draws are worth nothing, the 1984 World Chess Championship began on September 10. Nine games and 25 days in, Karpov had established a seemingly unassailable 4-0 lead. As Kasparov began to get more of a handle on the match, the next 17 games were drawn, before Karpov won again in game 27 to put himself one win away from victory. But the champion was not playing like he had been at the start of the match. He had started to make mistakes and, in game 32, Kasparov finally notched a victory. 'Karpov thought that he could win the match just by sitting back and waiting for his opponent to blunder, and that may have worked at the beginning, but Kasparov recovered remarkably. He didn't emotionally collapse the way many of Karpov's opponents did,' explains Soltis. 'Eventually, the strain got to Karpov and he began to make really bad moves. He became unnerved.' The next 14 games were tied, but in games 47 and 48, Kasparov won two in a row to pull the score back to 5-3. Suddenly, Karpov was floundering. Was his opponent really about to come back and win the match? 'Definitely, the momentum had shifted to Kasparov,' says Soltis. 'I think he would probably have at least gotten to a situation where they both had five victories. And the final, if that happened, I would have bet heavily on Kasparov. I think that Karpov had become a shell of the player that he once was. 'The Karpov that began that match in 1984 was not the Karpov that ended the match in 1985.' The intensity of the situation was apparently getting to the reigning champion, who lost 22 pounds over the course of the match. 'Karpov was obviously getting very tired. He was exhausted. He wasn't sleeping well. According to his aides, he was getting to sleep at midnight early in the match, and then it was 2 a.m. and then it was 4 a.m. He was clearly getting weaker and weaker,' says Soltis. '(He) wasn't very heavy to begin with. He's a small guy, relatively, and he was just wasting away.' It was at this point, with Kasparov apparently having turned the tide and both players keen to continue, that Campomanes took one of the most infamous decisions in chess history. He flew to Moscow and, citing the health of the players, announced that he was abandoning the match. The ruling, he added, was supported by the Soviet Chess Federation. In the 40 years since, there has never been a definitive answer as to whether Campomanes – who has since been referred to as 'Karpovmanes' in some circles – had any ulterior motive when he made the decision. In Sosonko's mind, the reasoning is clear. 'FIDE, the international chess organization, was completely under the influence of the Soviet Union,' he says. 'We knew, of course, that Campomanes was on the side of the Soviets.' When contacted for comment, current FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky told CNN that Sosonko's claims were 'rather inaccurate.' While admitting that the Soviets did have a lot of influence, he pointed out that there was a lot of tension between FIDE and the USSR Chess Federation, particularly between 1983 and 1985. There was this invisible hand that was benefiting Karpov.' Andy Soltis, American grandmaster and chess historian There have even been suggestions from some that Campomanes, who passed away in 2010, was an agent of the KGB, an argument Sosonko believes is an oversimplification. ''KGB agent' is a hard definition – that he got some money or some instructions. I don't think so. But he was on the Soviet side, in all aspects,' he says. Soltis points out that Campomanes had previously taken decisions in other tournaments that had hindered Soviet players and calls the notion that Campomanes was KGB 'absurd.' However, he does also believe that decisions throughout the match seemed to favor Karpov. 'The postponements, I think, were the critical point here,' he explains. 'Normally, players can ask for a postponement of a game in those days because of illness, and the players had exhausted their number of days they could take. And then there were these mysterious postponements that the government or the chess officials ordered. 'There was no real explanation. So there was this invisible hand that was benefiting Karpov.' There was, recalls Soltis, a shift in the FIDE President's reputation during the match: 'At one point, it seemed like Campomanes was standing firm, that he was an enemy of the Soviets. 'But during this match, the perception changed, and it would seem that Campomanes was actually playing a double game. He was really helping Karpov, he was helping the Soviet Chess Federation which really wanted to get this thing over with, and he was trying to find a solution. 'Nobody knows what's going on in Campomanes' mind, and he's dead now, so he'll never tell.' While the answer to this specific question is likely to be lost to history, what has happened since will inevitably inform how 1984-85 is viewed. Kasparov won the rematch later that year, then beat Karpov again in each of the next three World Championships, and is now known as one of the greatest players ever. Perhaps even more crucially though, present-day Russia is using sports to promote its interests throughout the world. 'I think the Russians are trying to use sports as a political weapon. I think that's definitely true: a leopard can't change its spots,' says Soltis. '(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is, well, a former KGB agent,' he continues. 'Nowadays, with the sports boycott of the Russians, they're in a very difficult position, and they're trying to claw their way back into chess, and into sports in general. '(In the Soviet Union) they were using sports and chess which, of course, is considered a sport in Russia and always will be, for their own benefit. And I suspect you're going to see this for many years to come.'
