Former world chess champion Magnus Carlsen has called on the international chess federation FIDE not to return the chess federations of Russia and Belarus to its membership. Carlsen said this while receiving the award for the best chess player in history, reports Komersant ukrainskyi
While receiving the award, Carlsen noted that he does not consider himself the best player in history, but instead considers another former champion, Garry Kasparov, to be the best.
“Of course, I’m happy to receive this award, but personally I still think that Garry Kasparov had a better career than me. …I think he’s more deserving. However, at least in honour of Garry, I’m sure he would have taken the opportunity to advise against the re-establishment of the Russian and Belarusian chess federations, so I will do the same. Thank you!”
– carlsen said.
Garry Kasparov is a Soviet and Russian chess player, and now a politician, of Azerbaijani descent. He is one of the leaders of the Russian opposition to the current regime, who is in exile. Kasparov is one of the few Russian politicians who openly and directly supports Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian war and calls on the world to provide maximum support to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Armed Forces and to defeat Russia on the battlefield. For example, Kasparov supported the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk.
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FIDE and Russia
As reported by , the FIDE General Assembly on 21-22 September in Budapest is expected to consider an appeal by the Russian and Belarusian federations to lift all sanctions against them. Not only Ukrainian chess players, but also the European Chess Union and a number of European federations have already spoken out against this possibility.
At the same time, after the full-scale Russian invasion and until now, Russian chess players have only been conditionally suspended from competitions – they competed without the Russian flag in a “neutral status”. Only the ex-Ukrainian chess player Sergey Karyakin, who publicly supported the war against Ukraine, was completely suspended from the competition.
However, on 8 June this year, the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) was “temporarily deprived of its membership in FIDE”. This decision was made because the Russian Chess Federation was in constant contact with sanctioned persons, organised tournaments in the occupied territories and generally violated the principles of political neutrality.
the “deprivation of membership” is temporary – only for two years. In addition, it only means that the FSD has no right to participate in FIDE events as an organisation. However, Russian athletes, coaches, clubs and arbitrators are entitled to participate in these events. In addition, it was clarified that this “suspension of membership” can be cancelled if the Russian Federation repents, changes its leadership and ceases its activities in the occupied territories.
This decision was made by the FIDE Ethics Commission. the FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich himself was also “punished”, as he is also the President of the Swiss Federal Republic.
FIDE has not yet commented on the decision of its own Commission, as it was waiting for the results of the appeal, apparently filed by Russia and Dvorkovich. And these results were not long in coming – the appellate instance overturned the decision of the Ethics Commission. Now the final decision on the Russians and Belarusians is to be made by FIDE this weekend, on 21-22 September.