Russia takes on Ukraine in battle for control of chess

Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine has now spilled over into the world of chess.

Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the International Chess Federation (Fide) voted to ban the Russian national team and officials from competitions.

For a country with a history of chess dominance, it was a painful blow. But now the Kremlin is fighting back.

A vote at the Fide general assembly next week in Budapest could see Russia fully returned to international chess competitions.

The Ukrainians, supported by allies from Britain, Germany and other countries, are trying to stop them.

“Russia’s control of Fide is absolute,” said Malcolm Pein of the British Chess Federation.

Fide’s president is the former Russian deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, and Mr Pein spoke of Moscow carrying out a slow takeover of the federation, by changing the constitution, influencing how decisions are made.

“We have a form of what was known in Soviet times as a ‘power vertical,’” he explained. “Any vote that Russia wants to pass always passes.”

Fide is a unit of the International Olympic Committee and Malcolm Pein wants the IOC to put pressure on the federation to maintain sanctions against Russia.

A proposal to lift all sanctions against Russia was submitted by the Kyrgyz Chess Federation, a key Russian ally in Central Asia.

However, other countries are also expected to back Moscow at the Fide congress.

German Chess Federation President Ingrid Lauterbach said each federation had only one vote and many countries in Africa and Asia were “vulnerable to influence votes”. [Russia’s] donate”.

“You can see [pro-Russians] trying to take over. Really worrying.”

In a separate move, a Fide commission imposed sanctions on the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) last June, banning it from participating for two years for “discrediting chess” and violating the principles of the international body.

The court found that the Russian football federation had organised tournaments in areas of Ukraine illegally occupied by Russian forces and reprimanded the Russian president of Fide for his membership in the CFR board.

Former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, both of whom are under international sanctions, are also board members.

Arkady Dvorkovich said at the time that many of his colleagues on the Fide council disagreed with the federation’s ban and would appeal. “Of course, the council cannot fail to consider such an important issue for the entire world chess movement,” he told Match TV.

But the key vote next week at the Fide General Assembly concerns separate sanctions to be imposed in 2022 – namely the exclusion of the Russian national chess team, flag, anthem and officials from all international chess events.

Ukraine’s efforts to prevent Russia from taking control of the chess world are coming to the forefront.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has assigned the task to his adviser on strategic affairs, Alexander Kamyshin, who gained fame early in the war for keeping Ukraine’s railways on track despite repeated attacks.

“I was quite surprised by this vote in Budapest,” said Mr. Kamyshin, the new head of the Ukrainian Chess Federation.

“We have had 21 chess players killed in this war. It is unfair to put this issue on the agenda while Russia is killing our civilians, our chess players in Ukraine.”

The Russian Chess Federation and Arkady Dvorkovich declined to comment to the BBC, although Russian officials have called the decision to punish RCF “deliberately politically motivated and unsportsmanlike”.

Malcolm Pein fears that if Russia were to return to the chess world, it would be a “major propaganda coup”.

“They’ll be able to point to that and say, look, we’ve been allowed to go back to playing chess. They can demonstrate to their citizens that they don’t have as many deprivations as they did because of the war.”

For Ukraine and its Western allies, chess is just one element in a broad campaign to maintain sanctions pressure on Russia.

But after two and a half years of war, calls to welcome Moscow back into the international community are growing louder.