Garry Kasparov's Blog, page 10

Because it’s so outrageous, I’m going to start at the bottom of the barrel with Tucker for this thread on Zelensky’s visit to DC, the Biden admin’s success and failure, and the future of American support for Ukraine and global security. 1/10 https://t.co/46i0cJFmIB

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 22, 2022

If the jacket fits… pic.twitter.com/LXqj7UMPxe

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 25, 2022

“Because it’s so outrageous, I’m going to start at the bottom of the barrel with Tucker for this thread on Zelensky’s visit to DC, the Biden admin’s success and failure, and the future of American support for Ukraine and global security. 1/10

Carlson has moved from advocating for Putin to endorsing Russia’s genocide in Ukraine. I don’t know why Murdoch is allowing this on his network, or why advertisers support it, but I will not appear on Fox News again while Carlson is there. A bloody line has been crossed. 2/10

Carlson’s attacks on Ukraine and Zelensky personally are designed to dehumanize and to justify Russian atrocities, which are already ongoing, documented, and publicly known. It’s like still backing the Nazis after Auschwitz was uncovered. 3/10

Slandering Ukraine & Zelensky as anti-Christian, undemocratic, etc. sends the message it’s fine for Putin to slaughter as many as he likes. The truth is that Ukrainians are fighting and dying for the American values Carlson sold out for Trump and Putin. Go to hell. 4/10

Zelensky’s visit to DC was overwhelmingly cheered, so wasting time on a few GOP America First buffoons isn’t needed. Just don’t call them conservatives. They are undermining global & US security for.. what, exactly? Why is weakening Ukraine so important to them? I wonder. 5/10

Don’t squawk about budgets and resources. Helping Ukraine devastate the invading Russian military for 5% of the US defense budget is a bargain, mostly using warehoused arms. Even Kissinger admits eliminating the Russian threat long hanging over Europe is a boon. 6/10

Helping Ukraine isn’t charity. It’s paying a debt after decades of enriching and empowering Russian aggression. It’s a wise & essential security move, because if Putin attacks Lithuania American soldiers would go and die. Ukrainians are dying to prevent that risk. 7/10

Now to Zelensky, Biden, and the Congress, together in DC, an amazing moment. Credit to the US for doing what it has done, and for this show of support. But, as the grateful Zelensky said, it’s not enough. Thousands are dying and the US is not meeting the moment. 8/10

Jokes and camaraderie are fine, but the Biden admin is still talking about concessions to the mass-murdering war criminal in the Kremlin. The opportunity was there to say that total victory is the shared goal of the US and Ukraine, with the total support it requires. 9/10

White House policy has not evolved to respond to Russia’s genocidal acts. There is no escalation in self-defense, & this self-deterrence must end. Give Ukraine everything to save lives, time & money. Peace can only come from victory. Seize this moment. Glory to Ukraine. 10/10”

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Forbes.

By Roger Huang

“In interviewing Garry Kasparov before, we spent time talking about his support for bitcoin, and his enthusiasm for marrying technology and human rights through chairing initiatives like the Human Rights Foundation, which hosts the Oslo Freedom Forum. Now, after interviewing him during the Collision Conference which took place in Toronto in June 2022, the world is a very different place than when I last interviewed him. With the outbreak of war, and the conflict between democratic and autocratic values on full display, it was time to ask him for his thoughts again on the state of the world.

These interview questions and answers are from a recorded transcript of our conversation together.

What do you think of the current state of the world and what seems to be the general rise of autocracy?

Now the future of autocracy and democracy depends on the outcome of the war [in Ukraine]. This is the front line of the war between freedom and tyranny and if Putin, God forbid wins, well, then we are entering the Dark Ages.

If Ukraine wins, I think it’s the change of these negative trends, as you mentioned, of the rise of autocracy. It looks like the free world now is gradually grasping the idea that there’s so much at stake in Ukraine. It’s not just Ukrainian sovereignty, it’s not its territorial integrity, but it’s the future. Because war of that magnitude has impact on every aspect of our life and every corner of the world.

Now, there are food problems in Africa and beyond that we have expectations from both sides. Everyone is watching. Every dictator in the world is now trembling because if Putin loses, Putin is the spearhead of autocracy. Then, it will embolden freedom fighters in their countries (Author note: since this interview, Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and other autocracies have seen significant protest movements).

What is the role of new technologies when it comes to the fight for freedom, at least online?

You know, I don’t pretend to be an expert in tech. But I’m more you know, just on the philosophy side — why I believe it is necessary. Because technology is a tool. Technology is agnostic. It’s how we use it. So I think we’ve reached the point where we have to embrace every technology that empowers individuals.

Even if we have negative elements of technology: because oh, like BitcoinBTC -0.3%and all the cryptos they can be used for bad guys for money laundering. Money laundering has existed since when money was invented.

I feel like it [”crypto”] is a part of the global fight for empowered individuals and we’re not only talking about the terrorist agenda of dictators and terrorists and all sorts of authoritarians.

We have to look with great caution on our own governments — they are benign, it’s not cancer, but every government is trying to gain more space at our expense.

And that’s why when you look at the big investors and top government officials like the Fed ,they always have negative comments about Bitcoin, because they understand it’s taking away their power, the power to control not only macroeconomics, but basically control our pockets.

They print more money and you know, our savings are devalued. And all of a sudden, there is something that is based in math, something that is based on technology that offers equal opportunity to you and to me and Warren Buffett.

What are some projects the Human Rights Foundation is working on?

For instance for Belarus, for the protests in Belarus. We raised a significant amount of money, around $5 million. […] We raised over $1 million through HRF, and overall it was about $5 million. Again, it’s relatively small, in Ukraine you’re talking about millions of dollars, but it’s a much bigger scale.

But the idea is there. People have new means to support good causes. […] We never stop working. You can look at the latest initiatives, one of them, we are supporting Afghan women, doing educational projects in Afghanistan today, this is one of them. Some of them are smaller, some of them are much bigger.

What do you think about central bank digital currencies like the e-CNY/digital Yuan or the digital dollar?

Digital currency, you know, must be decentralized. Otherwise, it’s not a digital currency the way we understand it. There will be attempts, not only from China to actually to take it to put it under control, but that — they go against the tide.

The Chinese — there’s an old saying, who is smarter than Prince Talleyrand? (the foreign minister who served both the French monarchy and Napoleon I, and whose name has become a symbol of shrewd yet cynical diplomacy). The whole world. […]Yes, China is powerful, the Chinese is powerful, but they are fighting the world.

They are fighting the winds of history. And this is not the wisdom of the crowd or the money of the crowd. Eventually the sheer numbers will be on this side. My daughter, she will be 16 in three months. So you know, let’s say five years from now she’ll be 21. My son will be 12.

And I mean to them, crypto will be even more natural than that. What is the dollar? I mean, it’s disappearing cash. So you’re talking about online payments, payments made by credit cards. So we are already moving in this direction.

So the idea of dollar, this becomes more and more vague. So they understand that payments are digital, and I think it’s for them the transition from dollar into crypto will be I think very natural.

And I think it’ll be such a powerful push. What it will come from, it’s America or even from within China or African countries or Europe. There will be more and more younger people just not willing to to lease our rights, sovereign rights, to control our money to unelected officials.”

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the Kyiv Post.

By Jason Jay Smart

“The third Anti-War Conference, organized by Garry Kasparov and other leading Russian activists, has called for the war to end, every inch of occupied Ukraine to be freed, Russian soldiers to be tried according to international law, and Ukraine to be compensated for all losses following Moscow’s brutal invasion.

Kasparov told Kyiv Post that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has miscalculated everything about this war and it is all helping to bring the end of his regime nearer.”

He added: “Between the impending economic crisis in Russia, and the high death tolls, it would seem that he is in a quagmire which will ultimately spell his defeat – and Ukraine’s victory. Once that happens, those accused of war crimes must be tried by an international court and Ukraine must receive substantial compensation for the losses it has suffered at Putin’s hands.”

In relation to the likelihood of being able to bring Russian war criminals to justice, Kasparov was quoted as saying: “It seems to me that the situation is changing every month and every week, if not every day. Putin’s regime is committing more and more crimes [and] attacks on civilian infrastructure continue.”

Ivan Tyutrin, a leading Russian opponent of the war and an organizer of the conference, explained to Kyiv Post that the conference was important as “it allows for an exchange of views on the current situation by prominent opposition politicians, experts and representatives of antiwar Russian initiatives.”

He added that the third conference in Vilnius resulted in the adoption of a resolution prioritizing Ukraine’s victory and maximum assistance to Ukraine.

Leonid Nevzlin said to Kyiv Post that “Putin’s war in Ukraine is something out of the history books about the First World War: Just look at the trench warfare and artillery shelling. This is truly a fascist power invading Ukraine and now we are re-living the worst nightmares of the 20th century. It is unbelievable that we now see what our great grandparents saw.”

However, Nevzlin, recognized for his strong support for Ukraine and decades-long democratic opposition to Putin, said: “I think this is really the end for Putin’s Russia and this war must end with Russia’s total defeat. By [the time of] our next conference against the war, I hope that we will already be discussing Ukraine’s great victory over Russia.””

Thank you Daniel and everyone for making this incredible program a reality. As the article mentions, Ukrainians also have much to teach their peers in the “old” democratic world about the value of democracy and fighting for it. https://t.co/O7BkC1ko6R https://t.co/tXc5u4ENof

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 16, 2022

.@Kasparov63 @AVindman and I wrote an op-ed in @timemagazines_ @TIMEIdeas about the role of Ukrainian youth & their American peers in fighting for the free world. https://t.co/bFTp5YI70h #democracy #Ukraine

— Daniel Lubetzky (@DanielLubetzky) December 19, 2022

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Time Magazine.

By Garry Kasparov, Daniel Lubetzky, and Alexander Vindman.

“In the fight for the future of the free world, Ukrainian youth will continue to play a leading role in more ways than one. Not only can they be the ones to ultimately rebuild their nation and fledgling democracy; but they can also help awaken their international peers, including young Americans, to the fragility of democracy and the critical role of citizens in defending it. This leadership by example is needed now more than ever as our world, including America, struggles with real threats to freedom and democracy.

Ukraine’s reconstruction will be a decades-long effort requiring the participation of a new generation of leaders capable of realizing the Ukrainian dream of European integration, prosperity, and democracy; yet nearly 700,000 Ukrainian students and 25,000 educators have been displaced since Russia’s invasion (World Bank). Over 2,400 Ukrainian schools have been damaged and over 330 educational institutions have been destroyed. In occupied territories, Russians are taking over school curricula with Russian propaganda.

In the wake of this disruption, we can help Ukrainians continue their educations by granting scholarships for Ukrainians to study at U.S. colleges and universities. In doing so, we can empower Ukrainian youth with the skills required to return home to rebuild Ukraine as a democracy that pays tribute to the enormous sacrifice of their people as they defend not only their homes but also the Free World as a whole. The benefits of this exchange are not just to offer Ukrainian scholars a chance to continue their educations, but also to educate American scholars by Ukrainian example. In addition to providing Ukrainian scholars a reprieve from the war upending their futures, we can create the opportunity for them to engage with their American peers who have the potentially short-lived luxury of waking up without the fate of democracy on their minds.

We Americans are in desperate need of Ukraine’s reminder of the freedom that is a stake and the courage required to defend that freedom. Here at home, democracy is increasingly threatened by radical positions on both sides. On the left, rigid ideology, judgementalism, and cancelling increasingly impinge on freedom of speech. On the right, a dangerous cult of personality is eroding rule of law and feeding violence. As both extremes gain ground, they eat the mainstream. In this climate, imagine what American youth could learn from their international peers, especially those in Ukraine whose people are laying down their lives for the democracy that we in the U.S. are at increasingly allowing to slip away.

The three of us have proudly made America our adopted home after emigrating or seeking asylum. We have experienced life in undemocratic nations where basic rights like freedom of speech and due process of law did not exist or were repressed. Through our foreign policy, humanitarian, and peace-building work, we know that democracy does not live in a bubble. To believe that Ukraine’s fight for freedom and our own are not deeply interconnected is short-sighted and dangerous. The result of Ukraine’s epic battle will shape not only the future of Europe, but also of American democracy. When democracy loses anywhere in the world, it is weakened everywhere. When democracy wins in one nation, all democracies get stronger.

The future of the free world will depend on our ability to build strong global alliances in support of democracy. Those alliances can begin on campuses across the world where young people are coming together across national boundaries to exchange ideas, shape one another’s worldviews, and learn not just from the history in their textbooks, but also from the history being written in our world today. Among the conversations they share about climate change, social justice, and economic models should be the ones concerning today’s threatening rise of authoritarianism and populism, and the actions required from all citizens to make a democracy work.

We believe we speak on behalf of legions of freedom-fighters when we say that, despite its imperfections, America remains a beacon of hope for democracy the world over. Let us learn from what Ukrainian youth can teach us and let us support their epic battle. Their victory will be our own, but only if we step into our power and responsibility to play a role.”

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the Daily Beast.

By Anna Nemtsova

“More than two decades after he came to power, President Putin’s grip on the Russian people is finally starting to falter.

The war in Ukraine has opened up a credibility gap, and for the first time many Russians no longer feel they can trust what their leader is saying to them. Combined with tough economic sanctions, funds being re-allocated to the war, and conscription drives across the country, the costs of this vainglorious conquest are becoming more and more difficult to take.

Even loyal Russians have plenty of questions for Putin right now. And the Kremlin is running out of ways to cope with the pressure. In the past, a scripted appearance, or a half-naked staged photoshoot would be enough to get the domestic media back on side. Sometimes, they even gave independent reporters a chance to ask Putin one or two sensitive questions—which he would quickly and vigorously dismiss.

But every recent attempt to make Putin look like a strong and decisive leader has failed so badly—even inside Russia—that after nine months of devastating war in Ukraine, the Kremlin is running out of ideas. They even canceled Putin’s big annual press conference for the first time in years.

“Russia, just like any other nation, wants to live a stable life without feeling ashamed of our Moscow leadership. Before the war Putin guaranteed us a stable life but now he tells us that life in Russia will be good only in ten years,” Vera Aleksandrovna, 57, a lawyer from Saint Petersburg, told The Daily Beast. “I liked Putin before the war, my son was an IT tech, we liked the IT opportunities in Russia; but now all the brain and talent is escaping the country, my son is gone too and I cannot afford to wait for ten more years for a good life.”

Putin’s rock-solid system is crumbling.

Russian chess grandmaster, Garry Kasparov, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, told The Daily Beast that we are already entering the endgame for Putin. “Russia has obviously lost the war, which will lead to the collapse of the regime but the question is how many more people will die before that happens,” he told The Daily Beast.

“Putin has never played chess, the game of rules, he played a poker game,” Kasparov said. “Putin is absolute evil, he has gone insane after 22 years in power; but in his bones he must understand that he cannot go on ruling Russia, when the war ends and dozens of thousands of angry soldiers return home with arms, feeling robbed.”

Tatiana Yashina, 62, the mother of jailed opposition leader Ilya Yashin, said the last week has seen a turning point in Putin’s regime.

“Putin is falling apart,” she told The Daily Beast. “He is clearly lying right in front of the cameras—with no confidence in his voice.”

Yashina had particular reason to pay attention to Putin’s state of mind because her son was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison last Friday, but the way the president has handled the fallout of his unpopular incarceration—for telling the truth about the war in Ukraine—has broken through to the wider population.

Veteran Kremlin pool reporter Andrei Kolesnikov confronted Putin over Yashin’s “beastly” sentence in a video that went viral. Yashina said: “Shaky Putin… lied that he did not know my son, then he lied that he did not know anything about the sentence.”

Putin’s contortions are no longer convincing his domestic audience.

Hundreds of independent Russian and foreign journalists have left Russia during the past nine months but some of those remaining, including BBC journalists, continue to spread the word about a commander-in-chief who is losing thousands of his soldiers, as well as some of the key territories in Ukraine. Last week BBC’s Russian service and the local publication, Mediazona, confirmed the names of 10,002 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The real Russian death toll “may exceed 20,000 and the total number of irretrievable losses could be as high as 90,000,” the BBC said.

Both independent and Kremlin-controlled polls show that Putin has lost support for his war, with less than 30 percent of the country wanting it to continue. “Putin could have ruled longer, if he did not start this war but now his days are really numbered, he is falling apart and he is clearly aware of it,” Yulia Galiamina, a Moscow-based opposition politician, told The Daily Beast. Galiamina has been a victim of police violence, and has been under arrest multiple times but she refuses to leave Russia, instead she is encouraging more people to stand up against Putin.

Galiamina leads a movement of more than 150 Russian women called Soft Power. “Most of our women are mothers, who see the problems from the point of view of our children’s future without Putin, in Russia, that is eventually going to be free.” Galiamina and Soft Power activists have been collecting signatures of people speaking against Putin’s mobilization of Russians. “We have collected more than 500,000 signatures that we are going to send to the Kremlin, we understand our collective responsibility,” she added.

Putin is still backed by around 79 percent of Russians according to recent polls but that faith is weakening. Studies by Levada, an independent Russian think tank, show the number of Russians who believe their country is moving in the right direction has already decreased from 64 percent in October to 61 percent in November.

Every Kremlin attempt to rebuild the image of Putin as superman seems to provoke another avalanche of jokes online.

Putin recorded one of his on-location Action Man clips earlier this month showing him driving over the bomb-damaged bridge to Crimea. It was supposed to show how fit and healthy he still is at the age of 70 but online commenters were more obsessed with the car he was driving. It was not one of the Russian-made Ladas he has previously promoted—which motorists curse for “breaking down more often than even the cheapest foreign brands”—but a German-engineered Mercedes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was forced to go on the record explaining that the Mercedes just happened to be on hand, and it was no indication of Putin’s vehicular preferences.

More damagingly, his jaunt into internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, now annexed by Russia, came in the same week that three explosions struck strategic airfields inside the motherland, one of them just 150 miles from Moscow. The drone attacks made Russian air defenses and the commander-in-chief look pathetic, even in the domestic media.

Last week, the Kremlin published an image of Putin with a glass of champagne in his hand, and that immediately gave rise to many anecdotes about “drunk Putin.”

The prevailing mood is becoming very hard for the Kremlin to navigate.

“The Kremlin canceling Putin’s big press conference is a sign: they realize how hopeless their situation is—this is a dead end, his plan has failed in Ukraine,” well-known Kremlin observer Olga Bychkova told The Daily Beast. “They are still standing by him, since without Putin they are finished; but now they are even unable to write a script, think of questions and answers for him.”

The latest debate between Putin’s critics is whether the catastrophe in Ukraine is the fault of one man or all of Russian society. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch turned prisoner now exiled in London, suggested to Radio Liberty last week that—while Putin took the whole country with him during the annexation of Crimea in 2014—he is now on his own. “The war of 2020 is purely Putin’s invention; Russian society had a shock on Feb. 23,” he said.

The question now is how much worse is the situation going to get?

Kasparov, an ally of Khodorkovsky, thinks there is now also an opportunity for the U.S. to drive a wedge between the president and his senior lieutenants, like Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Kremlin’s security council. He says the U.S. must spell out what would happen if they did ever allow Putin to press the nuclear button. Kasparov said he hoped CIA director William Burns “whispered something into Patrushev’s ear,” at the meeting between the security chiefs in Moscow last month.

After years of adulation across the country, Putin is becoming more isolated by the day.”

Thank you Daniel and everyone for making this incredible program a reality. As the article mentions, Ukrainians also have much to teach their peers in the “old” democratic world about the value of democracy and fighting for it. https://t.co/O7BkC1ko6R https://t.co/tXc5u4ENof

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 16, 2022

From the Lubetzky Family Foundation.

“NEW YORK, Dec. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Chef and humanitarian José Andrés; global human rights and pro-democracy activist Garry Kasparov; social entrepreneur and KIND Snacks Founder Daniel Lubetzky; and Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman have welcomed 20 Ukrainian students into the inaugural cohort of their pro-democracy scholarship program at U.S. colleges and universities. The initiative is designed to foster on-campus alliances in support of democratic values, which the program’s co-chairs, all U.S. immigrants, warn are under threat both internationally and at home.

As the war in Ukraine enters a new phase of disruption, in which over 2,600 schools have been damaged and in which Russians are introducing propaganda to educational curricula within occupied territories, Andrés, Kasparov, Lubetzky, and Vindman seek to empower Ukrainian students to continue their educations safely by participating in a funded year-long academic exchange. They also want to equip scholars with resources to educate their peers on the fragility and importance of democracy, and to assist them with developing skills to rebuild their fledgling democracy in Ukraine.

Across over 450 applications to the program, Ukrainian pride, a commitment to defending democracy, and a desire to help rebuild Ukraine were common themes. Among the 20 Ukrainian scholars selected based on need, academic record, and motivation to promote democratic values, ten students are currently attending American universities while another ten reside in Ukraine and will travel to the U.S. with the program. Scholars hail from 15 regions across Ukraine and are pursuing a diversity of majors, spanning film studies to economics.

Andrii Umanskyi, an International Relations major at American University expressed, “Ukrainians persevered through eras of resistance to Soviet oppressions against their democratic yearnings and three tumultuous decades of independence. The result is a complete awareness of the Ukrainian people about the cost they paid for their freedom so far and a determination to defend what is essentially a century and beyond of tireless attempts to establish sovereignty and independence.”

Alisa Rotova, a Business major at The New School’s Parsons School of Design said, “Ukraine now faces a unique opportunity – a fresh start for rebuilding and redesigning the way our country functions. We can choose to implement new technologies within sustainable development, build innovative systems, and explore never-ending opportunities. I plan to be a part of that.”

Students were personally welcomed into the program by co-chairs Andrés, Kasparov, Lubetzky, and Vindman through a Zoom video call on December 8, during which the four leaders thanked students for their bravery and accomplishments.

Led by the Lubetzky Family Foundation (LFF) and Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), in partnership with the International Institute of Education (IIE), student programming will kick off following holiday break, equipping students with resources for organizing pro-democracy events on campus and inviting them to participate in a series of virtual pro-democracy seminars featuring speakers like Cambodian democracy activist Mu Sochua and Sonny Cheung, the first winning representative of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy primary election.

For more information or to help scale the Global Democracy Ambassador Scholarship, visit www.lubetzkyfamilyfoundation.org.

Global Democracy Ambassador Scholarship

In September 2022, global leaders José Andrés, Garry Kasparov, Daniel Lubetzky and Alexander Vindman launched the Global Democracy Ambassador Scholarship to help Ukrainian students continue their studies at US colleges and universities; gain tools to rebuild their fledgling democracy at home; and educate global peers on the fragility and importance of democracy. In addition to supporting Ukrainians whose educations have been negatively impacted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the program empowers Ukrainian youth to be campus ambassadors for democratic values, which the program’s co-chairs, all immigrants to the United States, understand to be under threat globally. Learn more at LubetzkyFamilyFoundation.org.

SOURCE Lubetzky Family Foundation”

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at NPR.

By Greg Myre

“The past century in Ukraine has been packed with monumental events — wars, famines, political upheavals. Yet there’s a recurring theme that can be boiled down to a single sentence: Ukraine tries to break free from Russia, and Russia refuses to let it go.

“The Russian empire started to expand with Ukraine. In the mind of many Russians, their empire cannot exist without Ukraine. That’s why they keep coming back,” said Volodymyr Viatrovych, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and a prominent historian.

He lives near the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, which the Russians pulverized in the first days of the war. When the Russians invaded Ukraine before dawn on Feb. 24, Viatrovych says he immediately sent his wife and 6-year-old son to western Ukraine for their safety.

He then drove to Kyiv for an emergency session of parliament, which declared martial law. By 2 p.m. that day, he received a rifle so he could join the security forces defending the capital.

It was a day of high drama in a war that’s still playing out. But as an historian, Viatrovych also sees the actions of President Vladimir Putin as part of a pattern of behavior by Russian leaders.

“Putin’s many statements in recent years made clear he wanted to renew the Russian empire. This was a warning to me that this war was going to happen,” he said.

The boundary between Ukraine and Crimea, in a photo from early February of this year. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. On Feb. 24 of this year, Russian forces in Crimea pushed deeper into southern Ukraine and have seized additional territory in the region.

Claire Harbage/NPR

A declaration of independence

Ukraine first declared independence from Russia in 1918, doing so in an elegant, whitewashed building in the center of Kyiv that still stands and now serves as the offices for the Kyiv House of Teachers.

At that time, Ukrainians were seeking to take advantage of the chaos in Russia following the collapse of the Russian monarchy a year earlier. But Vladimir Lenin and the Communists, the successors to the Russian monarchy, sent troops to Ukraine and defeated that short-lived independence.

With no real alternative, Ukraine formally became part of the Soviet Union on Dec. 30, 1922 — a century ago this month.

A reminder of that history came just two months ago, on Oct. 10. That’s when a Russian missile slammed into the street outside the Kyiv House of Teachers.

The blast blew out the windows, as well as parts of the glass ceiling in the hall where independence was declared in 1918. The windows are boarded up. Shards of glass still cover the floor.

“There are, of course, parallels to a century ago,” said Oleh Steshuk, the director of the House of Teachers. “This building was also damaged in the fighting back then. And now it’s damaged again. But don’t worry. We will rebuild everything.”

Andrew Weiss, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, notes that during the Soviet era, Kremlin leaders repeatedly crushed Ukrainian protests and rebellions — which helps explain why Ukrainians are fighting so fiercely today.

“If you look at all the hardships that Ukraine experienced in the 20th century, and they’re vast, this is the moment where all the wrongs of the last hundred plus years need to be redressed,” he said.

A Ukrainian man stands in protest in front of gunmen in unmarked uniforms in Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014. The forces were part of Russia’s military, which remains in Crimea to this day.

Andrew Lubimov/AP

A clear desire to break from Moscow

Ukrainians thought this matter was finally resolved in December 1991, when they held a referendum on independence. Ninety-two percent voted in favor of going their own way. The Soviet Union collapsed later that month.

But when Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia in 1999, he had other plans. The Russian leader says he doesn’t accept Ukraine’s independence, and that it’s part of Russia. He claims that only Russia can protect Ukraine from foreign invaders.

“I have said it before, but I want to say it again: Russia can be the only real guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” Putin said earlier this month.

Putin has worked to install friendly, pro-Russian leaders in Ukraine. Ukrainians pushed back with massive street protests in 2004. And then again a decade later, leading Ukraine’s president to flee to Russia in 2014.

Just days after that episode, Putin invaded Ukraine. Then came his full-scale invasion this February.

He never expected such a tough fight.

Weiss said Ukraine is now “mobilizing all of its citizens to make good on the things that people 100 years ago could only aspire to. That’s a country that will have an identity that’s largely founded in opposition to Russia, and in a national narrative of survival and overcoming.”

Ukraine last month marked the 90th anniversary of a 1932-33 famine that the country blames on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. In this photo, visitors to the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide in Kyiv look though a book with some of the names of the 4 million or more Ukrainians who died in the famine. In the background is a photo of one of the victims of that period.

Ievgen Afanasiev/NPR

What the war means for Ukraine and Russia

For Ukraine, the stakes in this war are huge. The same is also true of Russia.

Russian Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and a staunch critic of Putin, said the Russian leader knows he can’t lose this war.

Because “if he’s losing a war, especially a war of his own making, he doesn’t survive,” he said. “The outcome may signal the end, not just of Putin’s era, but the era of the empire. It’s 21st century. It’s time for empires to go.”

Kasparov was still living in Russia 15 years ago when he entered politics and challenged Putin’s hold on power. When it became clear his safety was at risk, he left Russia, and now lives in New York.

This year, his organization, the Renew Democracy Initiative, is raising money for Ukraine.

“We see it not just as a moral duty to help Ukraine to survive and win the war,” he said. “But also as an opportunity to revitalize the discussion about democracy and the values of freedom. Ukrainians keep demonstrating to us that these values are worth fighting and dying for.”

Many military analysts warn the war is unlikely to produce a clear resolution on the battlefield. They say it’s likely to require negotiations and compromises.

That’s not a popular opinion in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and many citizens say they want all Russian troops driven out of the country.

Zelenskyy recently told Time magazine, “We are dealing with a powerful state that is pathologically unwilling to let Ukraine go.”

Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine’s former ambassador to the United States, said the region would be more stable if Ukraine wins the war and joins NATO. This is what Ukraine’s government wants, though joining the alliance is highly unlikely in the near term.

“Being a buffer zone or gray zone is not good from a geopolitical point of view,” he said. “If you are a gray zone between two security blocs, two military blocs, everybody wants to make a step. This has happened with Ukraine.”

Construction workers are already rebuilding in Bucha, reroofing homes in the snow and mud of a freezing December day.

Viatrovych says Ukrainians believe this time the confrontation with Moscow will end differently.

“I believe our generation has an opportunity to put an end to this. Ukrainians are more united, more mobilized, more ready to fight than in 1918,” he said.

Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him  @gregmyre1 .”

Thank you Daniel and everyone for making this incredible program a reality. As the article mentions, Ukrainians also have much to teach their peers in the “old” democratic world about the value of democracy and fighting for it. https://t.co/O7BkC1ko6R https://t.co/tXc5u4ENof

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 16, 2022

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the Washington Post.

By Susan Svrluga

“When Andrii Umanskyi left in the summer of 2021 to study at American University, his hometown of Skadovsk, Ukraine, was a prosperous seaside resort town. Then Russia invaded. Now Skadovsk and the surrounding area are under Russian occupation, with conditions steadily worsening. Staying in contact with his family has grown increasingly difficult for Umanskyi.

His father was nearly detained and imprisoned, Umanskyi said. His 16-year-old brother has been resisting orders to attend the school overtaken by Russians, trying to continue his Ukrainian education.

And Umanskyi, at 19, feels enormous weight on his own future.

“I feel more responsibility on me now,” he said. “It became apparent that awareness has to be spread.”

Umanskyi is one of 20 Ukrainian students chosen for a year-long scholarship created by chef and humanitarian José Andrés, human rights and pro-democracy activist Garry Kasparov, KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky and retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

The scholarship’s founders have two goals, Lubetzky said. The first is to support Ukraine during the war. “Ukraine is in the vanguard of the fight for democracy globally, and it is our responsibility as people that cherish democracy and freedom of expression and rule of law to try to support those being attacked by totalitarianism,” said Lubetzky, a social entrepreneur.

But they also want to remind Americans not to take democracy for granted. Each of them was born abroad and deeply appreciates the freedoms that Americans have, Lubetzky said. “We know that it doesn’t exist everywhere.” They say the Ukrainian students can be great ambassadors, not just for their home country, but for the urgency of protecting democracy.

“I think this is actually historic,” said Allan E. Goodman, chief executive of the Institute of International Education, which helped with the application process for the scholars, “because this is the first time that I know of, that in the midst of a crisis like Ukraine … education was part of the immediate emergency response.”

People respond to such crises by providing food — as Andrés has done for Ukraine and elsewhere with his World Central Kitchen — water, blankets, sanitation and efforts to provide basic safety, Goodman said. But with an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian college students displaced from educational opportunities, — because they are now serving in the military, their schools have been destroyed or for other reasons — the risk is of a lost generation, he said.

Aid can solve their immediate problems such as hunger, but education will be essential for solving future problems, he said.

Ukraine has a strong university system, Goodman said, and the Institute of International Education has been working there for many years and was able to help with the scholarship because of their familiarity with the region.

There are about 1,900 students from Ukraine in the United States now, Goodman said, but he expects hundreds more will be seeking an education abroad if the war does not end soon. He predicted the total here could double in the next year.

Lubetzky’s formative appreciation for American democracy came from his father, who was forced into the Dachau concentration camp. “The fact that Germany democratically elected Hitler terrifies me,” he said, and reminds him how fragile American freedoms are.

In the United States recently, he said, he sees “the trends of rigidity and polarization and the tribalism that’s overtaking our country,” making it important to build common ground among Americans, an appreciation for shared values and shared responsibility to defend those principles.

Ostap Stefak, 22, a junior at Harvard University from Lviv, Ukraine, said many of his classmates don’t realize how important those values are to so much of the world. “Ukrainians now are going through the same fight, the same battle for democracy,” that Americans fought more than 200 years ago, he said. “American democracy is still such an ideal for so many people around the world.”

When he finishes his studies in applied mathematics with economics and computer science, Stefak wants to help Ukraine. “I want to make sure that markets are free and transparent, that peoples’ economic rights are protected,” he said. “Things like property rights, these are very fundamental things — without them it’s very difficult to have economic growth.”

Umanskyi, who is studying foreign relations and started his degree virtually in 2020, has been having more and more trouble making sure his family is safe. Sometimes, there is a good enough connection to talk with them, but mostly they message one another through the Telegram app. It’s hard to concentrate on his studies knowing his family is in so much danger at home, but he tries to focus his thoughts on finding solutions.

While it was difficult to leave for the United States, Umanskyi said he determined it was the most rational course, so he could bring back expertise to help rebuild and strengthen his country. “For me, as a Ukrainian scholar, to promote democracy in Ukraine,” he said, “I think I made the right choice.””

.@Kasparov63: “The war in #Ukraine has shown us that the forces of democracy are stronger, more sophisticated and more advanced than the forces of authoritarianism.” https://t.co/1ZiMOSTFCz

— Francisco Taveira (@jftaveira1993) December 16, 2022

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Global Security Magazine (en Français).

“Au vu du contexte en Ukraine et de l’invasion Russe, nous sommes témoins en temps réel d’une cyberguerre totale qui se déroule sous nos yeux. Aujourd’hui en Europe, la cybersécurité et la liberté numérique sont, au sens propre, des questions de vie ou de mort…

Écoutez votre ennemi

On me demande souvent, depuis l’invasion lancée par Poutine en Ukraine, comment j’avais compris qu’il allait lancer une guerre. La réponse est simple : je ne suis pas devin, je ne tire pas les cartes mais j’écoute attentivement ce que dit Poutine. Les dictateurs peuvent affabuler et mentir à leur guise sur le passé, mais ils sont plutôt honnêtes quand il est question de leurs plans d’avenir. Il y a quelques années durant un dîner chez l’auteur de l’article « Pourquoi j’aurais dû écouter Garry Kasparov quand il parlait de Poutine », j’avais expliqué que Poutine n’abandonnerait pas ses projets pour l’Ukraine, à moins qu’il ne soit arrêté avant. D’ailleurs, lorsque Poutine a nié l’existence de l’Ukraine en tant que pays, j’ai aussitôt tiré la sonnette d’alarme. Il s’agissait là clairement d’un appel à la guerre.

Pourquoi la Russie perd la cyberguerre

Nous savons que le Kremlin a lancé des dizaines de cyberattaques contre des cibles ukrainiennes depuis le début de cette nouvelle invasion, le 24 février. Mais malgré tous les plans et toutes les stratégies de Poutine, la Russie perd la cyberguerre en Ukraine. Pourquoi ?

L’une des raisons de cet échec est la force du peuple ukrainien : tout comme l’armée ukrainienne a gagné la bataille de Kiev et continue à lutter contre l’armée de conscrits de Poutine en rendant coup pour coup, les spécialistes ukrainiens en cybersécurité défendent le pays des attaques du Kremlin.

Cet échec russe s’explique également par le fait que les systèmes russes et ukrainiens étaient si imbriqués que chaque attaque contre l’Ukraine pouvait se retourner contre la Russie.

Enfin, cette guerre nous a montré la grande vulnérabilité des systèmes russes. Des individus ou des groupes tels que les Anonymous n’ont eu aucune difficulté à pirater des sites du gouvernement russe.

Nous pouvons en tirer une leçon importante : la guerre en Ukraine nous a montré que les forces de la démocratie sont plus fortes, plus perfectionnées et plus avancées que les forces de l’autoritarisme. Nous devons, à juste titre, nous inquiéter de ce mal, mais nous ne devons pas en avoir peur.

La guerre et la cyberguerre peuvent nous sembler abstraites, mais elles nous aident à nous rappeler l’importance de la cybersécurité dans notre vie quotidienne. En effet, nous avons tous fait l’expérience de cybermenaces. Vous avez déjà reçu un spam, vu de fausses informations débitées dans des commentaires Facebook ou Twitter par des bots ou aidé une personne âgée à éviter les pièges d’une tentative de phishing ? Alors, vous savez que la cybercriminalité ne cesse d’augmenter. Nos vies se passent de plus en plus en ligne. Les outils de l’autoritarisme et de l’exploitation sont de plus en plus perfectionnés. Nous avons donc besoin de technologies qui évoluent sans cesse pour protéger la démocratie et notre confidentialité en ligne. La meilleure défense contre les cyberattaques, c’est un bon moyen de dissuasion.

La liberté numérique diffère d’une nation à l’autre

La révolution numérique a vécu une accélération sans précèdent. La pandémie de COVID-19 nous a tous forcé, ainsi que les gouvernements et les pays, à nous adapter à une vie virtuelle et hybride. Dans la plupart des pays démocratiques, cette transition numérique a exposé les utilisateurs à plus d’escroqueries en ligne et à un risque plus grand de piratage. Mais dans des endroits où est encore en place le rideau de fer de l’autoritarisme, comme la Russie de Poutine ou le Myanmar de la junte militaire, la pandémie a offert l’occasion au totalitarisme de réprimer davantage les citoyens et de limiter encore leur liberté numérique.

Ces citoyens du monde entier, privés d’un accès libre à Internet, doivent trouver des moyens créatifs, peu fiables et risqués pour contourner les pares-feux et la censure de leurs gouvernements. Cependant, ce dont nous sommes témoins aujourd’hui en Russie est du jamais vu. La coupure d’Internet en Russie par Poutine est un exemple historique d’une nation entière qui disparait du réseau Internet mondial. Les utilisateurs en Russie seront donc plus vulnérables aux malwares que jamais auparavant. Cependant, il nous reste encore à découvrir toutes les conséquences que ce changement cataclysmique aura sur Internet.”

They have the hair about right! pic.twitter.com/6exW82C20d

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 14, 2022

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Television Business International.

By Mark Layton

“Arte in France has commissioned Rematch, a scripted drama mini-series about the real-life chess competition between Garry Kasparov and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue. 

Directed and co-created by Yan England, alongside André Gulluni, the 6 x 52-minute series is produced by ARTE France and Unité, alongside Federation Studios, which will handle global distribution. Bruno Nahon is producing the series for Unité, with filming in Montreal and Budapest expected to conclude this week.

Based on a true story, Rematch explores the world of high-level chess via the 1997 match between chess champion Kasparov and his machine opponent.

The cast includes Christian Cooke (The Promise, That Dirty Black Bag), Sarah Bolger (The Tudors, Counterpart), Trine Dyrholm (The Legacy, Bauhaus – A New Era), Aidan Quinn (Elementary, Legends of the Fall), Tom Austen (The Royals), Luke Pasqualino (Skins) and Orion Lee (First Cow).

The series joins a slate of other Federation scripted titles including cult spy series The Bureau, financial thriller Bad Banks, Netflix original series Baby, tween drama Find Me In Paris and adventure series Around The World In 80 Days.”