Kasparov: Biden will fall, but Putin put Albert Speer to work and will wage the war for two more years

Garry Kasparov. Photo: Konstantin Sednev / Postimees Grupp

Garry Kasparov says in his latest interview that Shoigu will fall from a window, Khodorkovsky is just scaring the West and Macron is not much good.

These at least are some of the takeaways highlighted by Dmitry Gordon's (Dmytro Hordon) Youtube channel, which on Wednesday published an interview by Alesia Batsman with Garry Kasparov.

We get to know from the interview that former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is a beaten card, as his associates get arrested one after another, and it's no longer even interesting whether he will fall from a window or what exactly will happen to him. On top of that, the former world chess champion offers plenty of other striking assessments.

Kasparov starts with the assessment that Putin has up to two years of war potential left, while Ukraine's potential depends largely on what the West does. 2025 will be crucial, but the war is unlikely to last until 2027. The near future will therefore show whether Ukraine will win or disappear from the world map. It is definitely important now to put an end to the inequality whereby Ukraine is restricted from attacking Russian territory.

Emmanuel Macron is now mum about sending troops to Ukraine and cannot be taken seriously, Kasparov says. «When Estonians, like Kaja Kallas, or Lithuanians, like (Foreign) Minister Landsbergis, or Poles, like Prime Minister Tusk and Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, or Czech President Petr Pavel say something, these are words that they are ready to back up with actions, and that are based on genetic memory,» Kasparov says, putting Macron in his place. The Frenchman's words just do not have such a base.

However, it is the United States that gets a worse thrashing from Kasparov than the president of France – first, the Republicans and Donald Trump for opposing arms assistance to Ukraine, but even more so President Joe Biden, who is indecisive and unable to clearly set Ukraine's victory in the war as a goal. Kasparov remains convinced that during the foot-dragging over arms assistance in Congress, Biden had plenty of opportunities to support Ukraine more forcefully, but he did not.

Kaja Kallas, Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March 2002 in Brussels. Photo: WOLFGANG RATTAY

Kasparov considers Biden's presidential chances to be close to zero. He sees the fact that Biden has agreed to engage in debate with Trump as a trap that makes it obvious to everyone that the current president simply cannot debate Trump. That is why Kasparov does not rule out the possibility that Democrats will find a new candidate at the last minute, but it must not be Michelle Obama, who lacks experience. Unfortunately, it is not certain that the new candidate will be a centrist, as left-wing Democrats, who openly support Hamas terrorists, would not agree to have a centrist candidate.

There is not much good to expect from Trump for Ukraine either, but Kasparov hopes that Reaganites would still get significant foreign policy posts in his administration. And even if Trump and his closest entourage view Ukraine as change that can be traded, panic is unwarranted. On issues like Iran, Israel, or Venezuela, Trump would certainly take a sharper stance. Since a global war is underway, there is no reason to assume that Ukraine's situation would significantly worsen in the overall picture in that case.

Moving forward, the chess champion concludes that the upcoming European elections could be an even greater threat to Ukraine than the US presidential election in the autumn. We have warning examples of the rise of forces supporting Putin from quite some time ago. It is also a question of Europe lacking a convincing leader, a role for which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not fit either, even though he has already exceeded himself at times.

When asked about the replacement of Russia's minister of defense, Kasparov replies that the appointment of Andrei Belousov means an attempt to make Russia's military economy more efficient.

«I even called him 'Putin's Speer' on my Twitter, because it was Albert Speer who, in the 1940s, helped Hitler fully mobilize Germany's economy for war and make it efficient,» Kasparov says.

At the same time, he believes that purges and the arrest of generals will not eradicate corruption, as it is an organic part of Russia's current government system. Ultimately, Kasparov is not very skeptical about Ukraine's chances of winning. The West increasingly understands that, unlike chess, this war cannot end in a draw – Ukraine must win.

Albert Speer (1905–1981) headed the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions of the Third Reich, pleaded guilty after the end of the war and spent 20 years in jail. Photo: Wikipedia.org

At the end of the interview, the chess grand master discusses the apocalyptic prediction based on the estimations of another prominent Russian opposition figure, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, that Ukraine will lose the war. In Kasparov's view, the audience Khodorkovsky had in mind is first and foremost the West, which the former oligarch and political prisoner tries to warn in order to encourage allies to support Ukraine with greater vigor.

«The message was understandable: you have money, you have both money and weapons, give them to Ukraine. But it all sounded too tragically funereal,» Kasparov notes, implying that with swift assistance and the continued shift in Western mindsets, a Ukrainian victory is possible.