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[Music]
Garry Kasparov: I have several things in common with my guest in this episode. Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen and I were both born into Soviet republics. We both became chess grand masters, and we both left chess to enter politics. I think it is fair to say that while I reached greater heights in the chess world, as a former speaker of the Lithuanian legislature, she definitely rose higher in the political world.
Her home of Vlinius, Lithuania, has a special place in my heart. My first chess baptism by fire outside my home city of Baku, Azerbaijan, came at the All-Union Youth Games in Vilnius in 1973. I was just 10 while most of my opponents were four or five years older. I did not perform well, but I did meet Alexander Sergeevich Nikitin: state trainer of the U.S.S.R. Sports Committee, my future friend, mentor, and reliable supporter in the most difficult periods of my chess career.
From The Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America. I’m Garry Kasparov.
[Music]
Kasparov: Putting nostalgia aside, Lithuania has become a hot spot as one of the most ardent defenders of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Lithuania also recognizes that, should Ukraine fall, it is at the top of the list of targets for Putin’s attempt to rebuild the Soviet Union in his image.
But despite obvious threats, this Baltic country has offered refuge to many Russian political dissidents. All of this is why I wanted to speak with Viktorija. She’s part of a conversation now unfolding all across Europe about how to face newly aggressive authoritarian states, as the United States reevaluates its role as the global leader of the free world.
[Music]
Kasparov: Hello, Viktorija.
Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen: Hello, Garry.
Kasparov: It’s a great pleasure to have you on our program. And I think it will be more than natural if we start with something that unites us—actually united us prior to the political issues that bring us now together. It’s chess, the game of chess. So could you say a few words about your path from the game of chess into politics?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yes. Well, pleasure to be here. And, well, I’m a chess grand master, and that’s actually something that I always say prior to all of my political titles. I started playing chess quite early. I became quite a successful female chess player and was a European champion at some point. And, well, around the age of 30, I decided to turn into national politics in Lithuania. And from that point, about 10 years, I’ve been the parliament member in Seimas and also holding different positions. But still, for the bigger part of my life, I used to be a professional chess player. So that of course leaves a mark—as, well, you, Garry, will very well know—for the whole life.
Kasparov: I can’t help but asking a question that I’ve been terrorized for, for years since I left professional chess. Does chess help you in your political life?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Oh, yes. My God, I know this question. Yes. Yes. Well. I’ve been thinking about different ways to answer it. I think chess generally trains quite some fantastic qualities—your ability to focus, memory. I think it helps being a good winner and being a good loser, although not always. But you know, when I try to compare politics and chess, I see nothing but differences. Chess is a very honorable game. It’s a game where two people play at the chessboard according to the rules they both know. Politics is nothing but—I mean, the rules are constantly changing, the challenges are unknown, the situation is vague, and there are so many gray zones. So, you know, if I have to choose one of the two areas, I will always say that, you know: Chess is a straightforward, nice, beautiful game. Politics is something that overall matters more, but it’s much more tricky.
Kasparov: Yes. But you are very successful in politics as well. So you are not just a member of the Lithuanian Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament; you were the speaker of the parliament for quite a while. And I’m sure you know, you have still many more political heights to conquer in the future.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yeah, that’s true. I mean, my political career, it took off very quickly, and I became the youngest-ever speaker of Lithuanian parliament, some—well, a few—years back, in 2020. And my term finished not so long ago, a bit more than half a year ago now. I’m the deputy speaker of parliament now, in a position. And also I’ve been the leader of a liberal party for almost six years now. So time runs quickly.
In politics, I think, many things are about appearances. In politics, as we all very well know. And having the reputation of a chess grand master helps. There is no doubt about that. Having the title, having the titles from the chess times, is a helpful thing in making your words, your statements, more credible—more solid, I would say. And that has certainly helped me in my career so far and hopefully will continue to help in the years to come.
Kasparov: Well, it’s great to hear. That tells me that your voters have a very high IQ if they can recognize the value of chess judgment in your statements. So now, speaking about the voters—just give a little bit of background of Lithuanian politics, because Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, occupied after Soviet-Nazi pact back in 1939, 1940. And you were born still in the Soviet Union, but it became an independent country. And I remember it was the first one to declare independence from the Soviet Union. But just, you know, brief us about Lithuanian politics and how independent Lithuania managed in this 35 years of its modern history.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yes. Well, some major things you have mentioned. Thirty-five years might seem like not a long time, but our country was also independent in the beginning of the 20th century. So we have, you know—we are successors to that independence. So we have a tradition of being independent. And before that, we had a commonwealth with Poland for, sort of, centuries. So this European tradition, being part of a European family of countries—this is something that comes very strongly in our tradition, in our culture. And, you know, there is no debate about that, as I said.
We were the first country to break away from the Soviet Union, back in 1990—March 11th. That was the time when it was in the air already. But still, countries, Western countries, were somewhat hesitant, also, about encouraging the so-called Soviet republics to break away. Because if—well, of course you remember that time very well—[Mikhail] Gorbachev was something of a darling of the West with his perestroika and other things. But our history is completely different. In 1989, we had an amazing event when almost 2 million people held hands together in the Baltic way connecting Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. In a completely peaceful way, showing that we are independent, well, that we strive to be independent nations. But it was a difficult road. And in 1991, January 13th, we had tragic events around parliament, around the TV tower in Vilnius, when Russian troops—they were here, they were trying to capture the TV tower, trying to capture the parliament. And people were killed. Many people were injured. On our side, it was a huge unification of all the country. Of course the empire did not want to let us go easily. And only in 1991, February, the first country to recognize our independence was Iceland. Then a bit later, Denmark followed suit, and then already we gained recognition. Recognition from other countries all over the world. But now for 35 years, we’ve been independent. And we’ve been also a member of NATO and a member of the European Union for 21 years.
Kasparov: So if Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would not be members of NATO today, do you think that Russian tanks would be already rolling on the streets of Vilnius?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Well, the risk of that would definitely be much bigger, also. Well, I will remind, or maybe inform, the listeners that, you know, Vilnius is a capital that is only 30 kilometers away from the border with Belarus. And for any kind of military purposes, well, Belarus—[Aleksandr] Lukashenko’s Belarus—is unfortunately under the heel of [Vladimir] Putin’s Russia today, And well, he has been for a while now. So, of course, our geopolitical situation is, well it is as it is. But it’s not very auspicious for being, for feeling safe or relaxed. That’s one thing.
Secondly, of course, there is no doubt if Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia would have stayed in this gray zone, —like for instance, unfortunately, Moldova, Georgia state—well, there is a recipe that that Russia has been using. And that recipe is that no country where there is an unresolved, so-called military conflict can join NATO. And that we’ve seen in Moldova; that we see with Transnistria. That we see also in Georgia, which has now unfortunately been also politically, well, you could say captured in a way—or has at least turned from its European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
And I think what we are suffering from, as Europe, is that Putin, you know, in all likelihood wakes up every morning thinking about not just How do I defeat Ukraine?, but How do I dismantle NATO? How do I defeat Europe? And our leaders on the democratic side are thinking, Well, how do we avoid war? And that, instead of leading to becoming more resilient, quite often leads to indecision—to concessions and to a lot of self-imposed red lines. And we see that it’s not leading us to be more safe. Actually, that has the opposite effect.
Kasparov: So let’s, you know, also shift to another element of this war. You said Putin wakes up every morning and he thinks about this global war, because Putin’s Russia is at war with the free world. For Putin it’s not a potential World War III, as for many Western politicians. But he’s already fighting World War IV, because, in his mind, World War III was a cold war that the Soviet Union has lost. And now he’s trying to take revenge for this loss. And that’s what he has been saying, and his propaganda keeps saying. And one of the elements of this war, because he may not be feeling strong enough to challenge NATO directly, is it’s a hybrid war.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yes. Hybrid war. And that, again—you’re absolutely right. I mean, Putin does not feel reckless, or whatever you may call it, enough to challenge NATO militarily. And that’s, well, one more reinforcing point: how important it was that Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia became members of NATO on time. But hybrid is different. It’s operating in the gray zone. It is creating distrust in societies, creating a feeling of insecurity and planting narratives that later can be, well, somehow useful in potential future aggressions. So, in the case of Lithuania, we have been on the receiving end of propaganda war for many years now, and we’re also quite good at recognizing it. The thing is that, with our historic memory—with the road to independence, that is after all still alive in the memory of most people—it’s not easy to make us believe some of the narratives that they are trying to plant. But I think when it comes to hybrid warfare, well, one example—one fresh and quite effective example—was the instrumentalization of migrants in the summer of 2021 by the Lukashenko regime.
What has happened is that people from different countries—from, you know, Syria, from some countries from Africa—were shipped to Belarus and were, in hundreds, pushed through the border to Lithuania, to Poland, to Latvia. Some at gunpoint. And the idea was to disrupt the situation enough because, well, you know, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands, it could be tens of thousands. And this was a very difficult challenge to deal with. Because we—well, in Lithuania, we have never experienced anything like that before. And when we look back in hindsight, this was 2021; this feels like part, or a stage, of preparation for Russia’s second invasion into Ukraine. For the full-scale invasion—destabilizing the region.
Kasparov: Viktorija, you just already talked about the full-scale invasion. So, this is the fateful date: February 24th, 2022. When Putin began the massive invasion of Ukraine, having only one goal: to destroy Ukrainian statehood. Which, again, he was not even hiding behind some kind of diplomatic formulas. So today, does Europe, as an institution, recognize its responsibilities over Ukraine? There’s a growing sense that Europe keeps talking while not acting enough, still having some resources. So is the European Union acting again adequately now? Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and 11 years after the beginning of the war with annexation of Crimea?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: It’s not acting forcefully enough. And, well, several things. Europe could, without much difficulty, outproduce Russia militarily when we look at economic power. But because of different reasons, that does not happen yet. There is a lot of bureaucracy. It takes a long time, and so on and so forth. But that in itself is unacceptable. That’s one thing. Second, of course Europe has changed massively from 2022 February. And it has done especially, maybe, well, in the first year—somewhat more than was expected by some. But I really disagree with those who say that now, with the American new administration, well, making the decisions that it is making, that the ball is in the court of Russia. I think the ball is firmly in the court of Europe. And if Europe does not act more forcefully when it comes to sanctions, when it comes to supporting Ukraine, it will again, you know, it will reinforce this view—first of all, by Putin—that Europe is weak. Which it’s not, necessarily, but also this weakness is inviting for aggression.
So yes; I think Europe can do more. I think Europe should do more. And it is a time for Europe to stand up very clearly, as America takes a more—you can call it transactionalist or extreme transactionalism, I think this is the term. Another term is isolationism. But anyway, a different role than we would traditionally expect from America.
But I also have to add that, being a Lithuanian, we can see very concrete things happening in Europe that would have been unthinkable just a few years back. For instance, recently the German brigade started. Well, it was basically inaugurated—started stationing its military here in Lithuania. It will be a 5,000-soldier brigade, with their families here. So things are happening and also reinforcing the NATO Eastern flank. But when we speak about Ukraine, yes: Europe can and should do more.
Kasparov: We’ll be right back.
[Break]
Kasparov: You already talked about, you know, very high esteem for America. And I think it’s probably across the region, in Eastern Europe, where people always looked at America as a beacon of hope: as the country that, one day, could help them to throw away the yoke of Soviet occupation.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: True.
Kasparov: So, how do you evaluate American administrations? When you became a member of parliament, [Barack] Obama was there. Then you had first [Donald] Trump, then you had [Joe] Biden. Now you have Trump back. Let’s just go quickly over this period—to see what America did, what America could have done, what America deliberately delayed or had not done, and what America is doing now.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Well, I think one major thing that has to be mentioned and stressed: America, for Lithuania, is so much more than any given administration. It is, as you have said, it’s a beacon of freedom. It’s a beacon of democracy. And it is something that, well, we have so heavily relied—well, you know, idealistically, ideologically, during the most difficult times. And for a good reason, I think. So it cannot be reduced, I would say, to any one administration.
But I think what is fair to say is that many administrations, if not most, in the most recent history, start off with trying to make friends, usually, with Putin—because he’s been around for so long, right? But normally, towards the end they decide that, Well, yeah, that was not a good idea. But a lot of precious time has been lost. So there is this, somehow, this pattern that’s being repeated over and over again. And it is unfortunate, because nothing has changed on the Russian side with Putin. It has just been consequently getting worse.
What I find, well, today most frustrating is that suddenly we have to return back to saying absolutely obvious things like Russia is an aggressor. What it is committing in Ukraine are war crimes. They are attacking, you know, children’s cancer hospitals on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington. Well, as an example, right? Just one example. But there are so many.
So this idea that you have to repeat very banal, very obvious, things—that are very obvious for anyone who’s been even mildly interested in what has been happening in Ukraine—it is frustrating. Imagine, if it’s frustrating for us, how much more frustrating it should feel to Ukrainians. And when I talk to my Ukrainian colleagues, which I also do quite a lot, well, sometimes I am in awe of their, I don’t know what it can be called—
Kasparov: Resilience, I think. It’s—
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yes. Resilience.
Kasparov: They understand that they have no other choice but to resist Russian aggression. But of course they are, I believe, deep down, they’re depressed. But you have Europe and America, and it seems now that the transatlantic unity now is in great danger. So, do you still think, have any hopes, in NATO in its current form? Or do you believe that due to the very untraditional behavior of the current administration, Europe will have to look for some other arrangements?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: I think that NATO countries must, should, and, well, are doing more to allocate more money, more resources, to the defense. But the situation, as I see it, is simple. There is a war going on in Europe, and Europe has to do its utmost to help Ukraine. And also prevent this war from expanding further in Europe, which there is a risk of if Russia continues being unchecked. And, well, what also is, of course, another very worrying track is that lack of punishment for Putin’s regime. There cannot be peace if peace is unjust. If the war criminals are not called for being war criminals, but can immediately go back to the table with the world leaders, shake hands, and do business—that’s not a fundament for a peaceful tomorrow. And I think it’s not very—it’s not wise to think that the world is so simple.
Kasparov: But, but as a politician, you know, you have to look at the reality, even if it’s not a very happy picture, and to deal with facts. And the facts are just telling us that the American administration expressed more interest in taking care of the free-speech rights of the far-right groups rather than about the well-being of Europe. Do we believe that, at one point, under some circumstances in the future, the United States can leave NATO?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: It cannot be totally ruled out. But the main scenario right now, in my opinion, is that the U.S. will leave more to Europe to deal with European problems, so to speak. And European countries have to step up in terms of their defense expenditure and rely on European NATO more than anything else.
Kasparov: Lithuania and other Eastern European countries—they’re willing to walk an extra mile to boost their defenses. So recently, your country and, I think, two other Baltic nations left the global agreement that banned land mines.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Yes.
Kasparov: So you are planning to mine your entire border.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: That’s right.
Kasparov: So that’s quite a step; I think it’s the right direction. But that shows that you recognize how real this threat is.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Absolutely. And it was not an easy decision from, well, from the human-rights perspective. But it was a quick decision, and it is connected to the fact that we considered the danger real. So Latvia, Estonia—not just Lithuania—Latvia, Estonia, Finland are leaving the Ottawa Convention. Well, have left already. And that means that we will both, we can produce land mines and also mine our borders. Interestingly enough, the Russian propaganda channels reacted to it quite strongly. Saying that, Well, this is a further sign of a planned aggression against Russia from the NATO side. So that gives you an idea of how sometimes dumb that propaganda is, because it is so clearly a very defensive step. You mine your border in order not to be attacked from that side.
Kasparov: Okay. Leaving the Ottawa Convention is one step, but would your country and other Eastern European countries—and Germany, of course—consider one point, you know, leaving nonproliferation treaties and developing nukes? And just making sure that nuclear missiles will be aimed at Moscow from a short distance?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Well, it’s a theoretical, of course, discussion. But yes. In our region, well, Poland is talking about nukes. And, well, there is the serious discussion about France’s nuclear umbrella for the Baltic countries. Among the others as well. So we are thinking in terms also of how to boost our security, our 360-degree security, here in Europe—not necessarily relying on transatlantic security.
Kasparov: Everything that we discussed just indicates that Europe now is looking, especially Eastern Europe and Central Europe, looking for its own resources to boost its own defenses. Even as you just agreed—you know, building its nukes or having nuclear weapons in the region. Is it the result of just America basically walking away and departing from its role of a great defender or the guardian of the free world?
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Well, first of all, for us in Lithuania, it is crucial—it is very important—to show that we are good allies in NATO, in the European Union. That when we say that we care about security and defense, we do not just want to free ride and rely on someone who is bigger and stronger than us. But we do our part, and maybe even do more than we are expected. That has been the principle of how we operate for 35 years. And I think it’s important.
Second, when it comes to America, it is a challenge to see that the values that have been, you know, figuratively speaking, shining so brightly for so many decades, perhaps changing colors to an extent. If I have to put it bluntly, it’ll also take longer for us to start seeing the United States in a different light. And we have a lot of good cooperation. But Europe has to step up. Europe has been, for very long, relying on that the peace dividend is forever. And that is not the case.
We have learned some painful lessons. We in the Eastern NATO flank are happy to drive the process further—be it on defense, more money for defense. Be it on supporting Ukraine as much as possible. Or developing defense industries as quickly as possible. All of these things are very important, and all of this is done defensively in order to avoid a war. So we are peaceful people. We are an example that a country can live—it can have a great standard, can have free speech, can have human rights in quite a short time. And I think that is the painful thing for the Kremlin. They do not want to see successful countries from the former empire, because it might lead their people to think that there is another way, there is another track for their country as well. And that is definitely very scary for the regime.
[Music]
Kasparov: But we can summarize it by saying that when America walks away, the world becomes a more dangerous place.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Absolutely.
Kasparov: Viktorija, thank you very much. And again, good luck. And I believe that independent Lithuania will play a crucial role in defending the freedom of the region. And again, definitely, see you soon—because Vilnius is one of the places that I’ve been visiting since, I’m afraid to say, since 1973.
Čmilytė-Nielsen: Thank you, Garry. And looking forward to seeing you in Vilnius.
Kasparov: This episode of Autocracy in America was produced by Arlene Arevalo. Our editor is Dave Shaw. Original music and mix by Rob Smierciak. Fact-checking by Ena Alvarado. Special thanks to Polina Kasparova and Mig Greengard. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio. Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Next time on Autocracy in America:
Oleksandra Matviychuk: I know that some politicians abroad, they have this wishful thinking that The war is so horrible, that Okay, occupation is not good, but at least it’ll stop the war and decrease human suffering. But believe me: I document war crimes in occupied territories for 11 years. Occupation doesn’t stop human suffering. Occupation just makes human suffering invisible.
Kasparov: I’m Garry Kasparov. See you back here next week.
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