Chess World Awaits Controversial Vote At FIDE General Assembly To Reinstaste Russia, Belarus

At the General Assembly of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), to take place September 21-22 alongside the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, delegates will vote on a controversial proposal by the Kyrgyz Chess Federation to remove current restrictions on the Russian and Belarusian chess federations. Several Western federations have protested the proposal.

In a letter dated June 5, 2024, Kyrgyz Chess Federation President Babur Tolbaev requested to put up for a vote the proposal to "restore the full membership rights of the Russian Chess Federation and the Belarus Chess Federation, with such a decision taking immediate effect."

Tolbaev does not provide arguments for the proposal but expressed his federation's "concern regarding the decision made by certain FIDE structures in 2022" to suspend Russia and Belarus and noted that they believe that "such a significant decision should be made by the highest authority, the General Assembly of FIDE."

Suspension of Russia and Belarus

On March 16, 2022, the FIDE Council suspended Russia and Belarus from participation in official FIDE team tournaments while individual players could still play in tournaments under the FIDE flag. This came more than two weeks after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had recommended on February 28, 2022 to international sports federations and sports event organizers that they "not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions."

A day before that – three days after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine – the FIDE Council had decided to suspend all official FIDE chess competitions and events in Russia and Belarus, to stop showing Russian and Belarusian national flags or playing their anthems in FIDE-rated international chess events, and to terminate sponsorship agreements with Belarusian and Russian sanctioned and/or state-controlled companies.

Protests against the proposal

With the vote on the Kyrgyz Chess Federation's proposal, which is likely to take place on September 22, the FIDE delegates have the power to nullify the FIDE Council's decisions of 2022 and fully reinstate the Russian and Belarusian federations. This prospect has led to protests from a number of chess federations, most prominently Ukraine.

Alexander Kamyshin was elected President of the Ukrainian Chess Federation only a couple of weeks ago. He recently stepped down as Ukraine's Minister of Strategic Industries but still has a role in the government as advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky on strategic affairs. On social media platform X, he expressed his outrage in a thread, where he noted:

While chess players in Ukraine are killed by Russian military terrorists, there is no place for the Russian and Belarusian flags at chess tournaments. The Russian anthem has no right to sound in the countries of the free world. Moreover, no self-respecting chess player who values their reputation will go to a country that is daily killing the peaceful people of another country. I would like to remind you that since the beginning of the Great War, 21 chess players have already been killed in Ukraine, and two more chess players are still missing. And these are only the data that are currently known. Therefore, on behalf of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, I officially declare our categorical disagreement on this agenda item.

I am starting my work at the Ukrainian Chess Federation @uachessfed with a challenging and important battle on the international front.

Yes, it’s again about russia.

And no, we will not let them prevail, as we don’t let it on the battlefield. #NoBloodyRussianFlagBackInChess pic.twitter.com/MawQiCmSOI

— Alexander Kamyshin (@AKamyshin) September 9, 2024

Last Monday, September 16, a letter was posted on X, signed by GMs Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Anton Korobov, Natalia Zhukova, and others, who are urging national federations "to ensure that this topic is not even placed on the agenda for discussion." They ask the chess community for "solidarity and support" for Ukraine and to "promote peace."

Vasyl Ivanchuk and other Ukrainian chess players signed a letter to @FIDE_chess urging not to lift sanctions against the russian and belarusian federations@Ponomariov @AndriyVolokitin @Natalichess @EvgeniyaDoluhan@AKamyshin @Eljanov @PHChess @AndriyBar @TarjeiJS @ChessProblem pic.twitter.com/BADHLhPEM6

— Tribuna.com Україна (@tribunaua) September 16, 2024

Other chess federations are protesting the vote as well. The Norwegian Chess Federation has already announced that it will vote against, alongside neighboring countries. Deputy chairman of the Norwegian federation, Jon Kristian Haarr, told newspaper Nettavisen that the Nordic countries will come with a joint statement at the FIDE Congress.

Another federation fiercely against the Kyrgyz chess federation's proposal is England. Its delegate, IM Malcolm Pein, told The Telegraph: "It’s clear that Kyrgyzstan is just a proxy for Russia in this instance, and they are clearly aligned with Russia. This can be discerned from the sudden colossal increase in trade between Western countries in Kyrgyzstan that started once sanctions were imposed, and clearly shows that a lot of sanctions busting is going on through the country as well."

It’s clear that Kyrgyzstan is just a proxy for Russia.
—Malcolm Pein

Going against the IOC?

Pein noted that if the motion passes, "there's a danger that chess will become a pariah in world sport." While this might not be seen as such by everyone, it does appear that reinstating Russia and Belarus would be going against IOC recommendations.

The IOC's stance on the matter, as extensively put into words on March 28, 2023, hasn't changed since. It includes the following recommendations:

• Athletes with a Russian or a Belarusian passport must compete only as Individual Neutral Athletes.
• Teams of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport cannot be considered.
• Athletes who actively support the war cannot compete. Support personnel who actively support the war cannot be entered.

The German Chess Federation, one of the first to reject the proposal that is up for vote, also noted the IOC recommendations. Its President, Ingrid Lauterbach, said in a statement on August 23: "I was afraid that something like this would happen to us. But our position is clear here: From our point of view, these motions do not correspond with the position of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and also our position on this war."

FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission

Related to the upcoming vote is the decision of the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) on September 12 that FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) have successfully appealed recent penalties. In June of this year, the EDC punished the CFR with a two-year conditional ban and reprimanded Dvorkovich, in both cases for violations related to Russia's invasion of and continued aggression against Ukraine.

Both the CFR and Dvorkovich appealed successfully except for one charge: the CFR's alleged recognition of the occupied Ukrainian territories of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as part of the Russian Chess Federation's territory. For that, the CFR's conditional ban has now been turned into a 45,000 euro fine.

The Ukrainian Chess Federation, GM Andrii Baryshpolets, and GM Peter Heine Nielsen, who brought the original case to the EDC in September 2023, have not given up the battle just yet. In a tweet on Tuesday, Nielsen noted that they have "informed the FIDE office of a potential conflict of interest, involving the FIDE Ethics Committee Chairman Francois Strydom due to his connections to the Russian Law Firm SILA Lawyers."

Today we have informed the FIDE office of a potential conflict of interest, involving the FIDE Ethics Committee Chairman Francois Strydom, due to his connections to the Russian🇷🇺 Law Firm SILA Lawyers.https://t.co/PwUiLtCsWI pic.twitter.com/gqtAaC03g3

— Peter Heine Nielsen (@PHChess) September 17, 2024

As it turns out, Kyrgyz Chess Federation President Babur Tolbaev, who brought the proposal to lift the restrictions on Russia and Belarus, is among the candidates for becoming the new Chairman of the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission.

Many expect that Kyrgyzstan's proposal will receive enough support to be passed, in what will be a vote during the FIDE Congress on September 22. In FIDE's voting system, the vote of small (sometimes tiny) federations are valued equally to the votes of large members like the U.S. or Germany. A few months into the war, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich of Russia was re-elected with a vote tally of 157-16.