Chess champion Garry Kasparov has been a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin for over a decade. In Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped, he observes how Putin’s ascension to presidency in 1999 was a strong signal that Russia was headed away from democracy, that Putin’s Russia defines itself in opposition to the free countries of the world, and that the West is paying the price for allowing it to happen.