from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.

This is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

We're delighted that you're listening to this podcast.

If you enjoy it, please be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And please also be kind enough to leave us a favourable review.

Now, at the journal's editorial page, we believe strongly in free expression.

And so each week on this podcast, we explore in depth and candor, with the help of a leading

commentator, a major issue of topical importance, events of historical significance,

or just something that we find fascinating. This week, as the war in Ukraine rages on,

I'm very pleased to be joined by Gary Kasparov. Gary was born and raised in the Soviet Union,

and of course is a former world chess champion and one of the most recognized chess grandmasters

in the world. But in recent years, he's been an outspoken commentator and a strong proponent of

liberal democracy. It's been a particularly fierce opponent of Vladimir Putin, and he left Russia

a decade ago and lives in New York now. In 2015, he published a book called Winter is Coming,

in what now looks a remarkably prescient

warning that Putin would take advantage of the appeasement he was facing from the West to

expand Russia's global power by force if he wasn't stopped.

And seven years later, here we are with Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.

Gary Kasparov, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Thank you very much for inviting me. So you were indeed right. A lot of people were skeptical and indeed the whole

history of the West's perhaps engagement with Vladimir Putin over the last decade or so has been

...