The international chess world is heading for a geopolitical showdown, whilst Ukrainian players die on the battlefield under Russian fire.
The Russian president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Arkady Dvorkovich, might be forced out of his role at its next congress in September, especially if he was to face an EU visa-ban.
“I think many Western federations are fed up with FIDE and its strong ties with Russia,” said the Finnish chess federation.
Dvorkovich has championed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the return of Russian players to international games.
But at the same time, Russian aggression has killed 44 Ukrainian chess players and coaches, according to the Ukrainian Chess Federation (FSUE), including the late FSUE vice-president Artem Sachuk.
“Come to Ukraine, at least to Kyiv, and see with your own eyes how much grief and misery the country that attacked us has caused,” said current FSUE vice-president Volodymyr Kovalchuk, speaking from the Ukrainian capital.
The FIDE congress is to take place in Samarkand from 9 to 28 September, where players from some 200 countries will compete in the ’46th Chess Olympiad’.
But alongside the sporting event, the 69-year-old Dvorkovich is expected to seek another four years in charge in a FIDE presidential election.
And if the EU was to blacklist him in the run-up to the FIDE vote, as proposed, that might harm his chances, said Aleksi Olander from the Finnish Chess Federation.
“If the EU will impose some visa ban on Dvorkovich, I think it is impossible for him to continue in his role,” Olander told EUobserver.
FIDE said: “In the event of any situation that could potentially affect the exercise of an elected official’s duties, FIDE would follow its established internal procedures and competent organs, based on verified facts and in full compliance with its regulations”.
Dvorkovich stands accused of backing Russian aggression in a European Commission charge-sheet discussed by EU ambassadors in Brussels on 13 February and seen by this website.
He has “called occupied Ukrainian territories ‘new territories’ of the Russian Federation,” the EU memo said.
His “key role” in the Chess Federation of Russia meant he effectively “organised and operated tournaments in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson regions,” the EU proposal added.
FSUE’s Kovalchuk said: “He [Dvorkovich] is constantly seen at meetings with war criminals in Moscow and other regions”.
“It’s important to us that after the imposition of sanctions, he must automatically resign,” said Kovalchuk.
Villu Otsmann, from the Estonian Chess Federation, said: “Sanctions are a good idea if there’s a real connection that Russian aggression against Ukraine was really supported by Arkady Dvorkovich”.
Håkan Jalling, president of the Swedish Chess Federation, said: “We are carefully following the [EU sanctions] process”.
If all 27 EU countries were to agree, Dvorkovich’s visa-ban and asset freeze might be put in place by 24 February as part of the bloc’s 20th round of Russia sanctions.
Russian president Vladimir Putin opening chess school in Sochi in 2016 (Source: Kremlin)
Red-flag issues
But any EU action aside, Dvorkovich already caused division inside FIDE by pushing through the readmission of Russian and Belarusian players into international tournaments last December.
The English, Estonian, German, Norwegian, and Ukrainian chess federations have contested the move at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a tribunal in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“It violates sportsmanship towards Ukraine to support Russian chess players coming back with their flag,” said Estonia’s Otsmann.
Russian players are still banned from participating in Finnish or Swedish national competitions, despite the FIDE decision.
“The Nordics will keep our sanctions [on Russian players]. We also support the appeal to CAS due to wrong handling according to the FIDE statutes,” said the Swedish federation’s Jalling.
“The Irish Chess Union supports the appeal lodged before the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” it told EUobserver.
In Ukraine itself, “many strong [Ukrainian] grandmasters left the country for the EU, many talented young people also left, and indeed many chess players are defending our country with weapons in their hands”, said Kovalchuk.
But chess was also widely played by children in bomb shelters as well as by soldiers on the front line, he added.
“It has became very popular among young people, because it helps you to distract yourself from the problems caused by the war and immerse yourself in the world of chess and [its] combinations,” he said.
That was why Ukrainian youth teams did well in the 2022-2025 period, he noted.
“It shows that the Ukrainian nation is one of the most talented and advanced chess countries in the world,” Kovalchuk added.
US chess player Bobby Fischer (l) with then FIDE president Max Euwe, speaking about the world championship match with Boris Spassky (Source: Bert Verhoeff/Wikimedia)
Cold War again?
Geopolitics divided the chess world during the Cold War, as epitomised in the 1970s rivalry of Western champion Bobby Fischer and Russian master Boris Spassky.
In the current conflict, Norwegian champion Magnus Carlsen was “actively helping Ukraine,” said Kovalchuk.
Russian former world champion Garry Kasparov is a leading critic of president Vladimir Putin, from exile in New York.
Meanwhile, two famous Russian chess players who became pro-Kremlin politicians, Sergey Karjakin (banned in 2025) and Anatoly Karpov (2022), have been blacklisted by the EU.
But for all that, it was a mistake to look for parallels with the Fischer/Spassky-era clash, warned Kovalchuk.
“It’s incorrect to compare the Cold War and the nuclear arms race in the 1970s with the current full-scale war, which takes many lives every day, both civilians and military,” he said.
Looking ahead to the Samarkand congress, he added: “We hope
the entire civilised world will be able to democratically-elect a candidate who will defend the values that will unite all world chess federations”. Fide “.
The Finnish Chess Federation’s Olander said: “The important question is: will there be some credible candidate who can challenge the Russian-backed one?”.
“Somebody should step up really soon and start campaigning,” he added.
“Who that somebody will be, I don’t know — someone who can unite enough federations to back him, otherwise it will be too late to secure enough votes to oppose the Russian candidate,” Olander said.
Ukrainian soldiers playing chess on today’s front line (Source: FSUE/Volodymyr Kovalchuk)