"Well, you dropped chess prestige": the FSHR got a checkmate in every sense

Last week, the General Assembly of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was held in Budapest, where the issue of returning Russian and Belarusian athletes to the opportunity to compete under the flags of their countries was considered.

Despite another complaint from Ukraine and the anti-Russian position of the 16th world champion Magnus Carlsen, an optimistic mood prevailed in the leadership of the Russian Federation.

"I think we have a very good chance of a positive decision that the flag and anthem will be returned to us at the congress. We have good positions, as many people understand the senselessness of sanctions. We were suspended for political reasons, and sport should not be influenced by politics," said Sergey Smagin, Vice—president of the Russian Sports Federation.

The voting was held in an open format, in order to avoid conflicts of interest, the action instead of the head of FIDE Arkady Dvorkovich was led by the vice-president of the federation Viswanathan Anand, who offered the electors three options:

— Preservation of all sanctions;

— Full lifting of sanctions;

— partial lifting of sanctions (admission of Paralympians and children under 12 to team tournaments after consultation with the IOC and IPC) — the FIDE council spoke for him.

The final balance: 66 votes for partial lifting, 41 for maintaining all sanctions, 21 for complete lifting.

"This vote was unprecedented in the pressure exerted on the delegates who were supposed to vote. There was a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine that if delegates from other countries support the lifting of sanctions against Russian athletes, then sanctions from Ukraine will follow.

There was a statement from the US State Department regarding this issue. There was also an active influence from the diplomatic corps of Ukraine personally on each specific delegate, allegedly they would subject everyone to sanctions if they supported Russia's position.

Accordingly, the key question was: how will the voting take place — in open or closed mode. The FIDE President intervened in the process and, referring to the FIDE charter, did not raise the question of how we will vote. As a result, I conducted an open voting process, which led to amazing results," said the head of the FSH, Andrei Filatov, in an interview with Match TV.

The most important result was that 60 delegates simply left the hall, which, of course, affected the voting results. It is clear how these delegates were going to vote, since they were afraid of sanctions. That was the key moment.

"After that, another part of the delegates decided to take a compromise position in the form of lifting sanctions from our Paralympians, veterans and children under 12, choosing an unexpectedly surprising wording that consultations were held with the International Olympic Committee. For example, the IOC authorized international organizations to give admission to competitions to transgender people, and FIDE and its leadership suddenly decided to ask the IOC whether to admit our Paralympians… It looks extremely amazing.

In general, the issue should have been resolved two years ago. Delayed the time. And only now have we decided to vote on this issue by contacting the IOC. From my point of view, this is another trick of the FIDE president to gain time and not solve this issue quickly. Who wants to solve the problem — does it quickly. And it is not necessary to listen to the IOC, which has discredited itself so much," Filatov says.

Summing up the results of the anti—Russian chess assembly, Sport24 suggests that the flags of Russian and Belarusian chess players will not be returned soon, and children and Paralympians may still not be allowed to team tournaments - this will be decided by the International Olympic and International Paralympic Committees.

And looking at how the IOC and IPC still do not call on the winter federations to open international starts for Russian and Belarusian athletes, which threatens our flight past the 2026 Olympics, there is a feeling that nothing will change in the current realities.

And now a few comments on a given topic from famous athletes, officials and public figures.

12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov:

"It is clear that politics has intervened. I expected that this outrage would be abandoned. The IOC was attached from the very beginning, it's not news that [the head of the organization] Thomas Bach took the initiative. Although what does chess matter to him?"

Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Chess Federation Dmitry Peskov:

"Our chess federation will continue to work so that eventually all sanctions will be lifted. We hope that this work will yield results over time, and the balance of power in FIDE will change in a particular case. Now both the Westerners and Ukraine are really exerting quite frank and undisguised pressure on other countries that work within the framework of FIDE. It's not a secret, and everyone knows it well. Unfortunately, FIDE is also not free from the politicization of sports and the politicization of the chess world. This is also a fact that, unfortunately, we have to admit..."

Olympic champion, State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova:

"This is an amazing decision. I think that the opinion of the FIDE president was not even perceived there by some members of the General Assembly. These are inhumane decisions that are in no way capable of supporting the development of sports."

And now, actually, a few words off the record. Russian chess officials were counting on a gentlemanly solution to the issue and were already preparing for a festive banquet on the occasion.

But the Ukrainian limitless went the other way. And they stupidly took delegates by the lapels, promising to stuff their faces and deprive them of bureaucratic nishtyaks for life. Therefore, sixty intimidated envoys of their countries chose to leave the hall before the voting procedure.

I am afraid that now such a practice, with the support of you-know-who, will take place in other forums where the degree of punishment and the number of sanctions for Russians are imposed.

By the way, we have the Winter Olympic and The Paralympic Games of 2026 (February-March) are on the way, which will be held in the north of Italy in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.

And people want to know in what status the current AINS and NPAs, our neutral Olympians and Paralympians, will go to the Games. Taking into account the fact that the lion's share of winter qualifying tournaments traditionally take place in Scandinavia, where fierce anti-Russian sentiments reign.

We would like to set priorities now, bring the disposition and target designations to the people, so that later 147 times we don't change the strategic strategy and depth of the depths, as in the case of fifteen arbitrariness who fled to Paris under cover of night, and returned home with one silver medal not for the country, but for themselves.

Or as with the Friendship Games, the Organizing Committee of which did not know that the participants of the Olympiad were resting for some time after such responsible starts and would not be able to come to Moscow and Yekaterinburg by September 15. Hence the transfer of the tournament, which was promoted to the skies, without official notification.

Here, it seems, is chess. Where we have been playing with gray pieces for the ninth year, without a flag, anthem, coat of arms, rook, officer, knight and five pawns.