Sergey Karjakin has refused to back down since he was banned from chess for 6 months for vocally supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, and in fact has only gone further in pushing the Kremlin line on every issue. In a new post on Telegram he denounced Ian Nepomniachtchi and many of his former teammates and federation officials, in a style familiar to any student of Soviet history.  

The latest comments from 2016 World Championship challenger Sergey Karjakin are, however, a reminder that Karjakin is far from representative of Russian chess, since many top players and chess federation officials have stood against the war despite the personal risks involved.  

Ian Nepomniachtchi, who Sergey worked for in the run-up to the 2021 World Championship match against Magnus Carlsen, has now become a challenge for Kremlin propaganda.

On the one hand, he's one of the few Russian sporting heroes left after restrictions were placed on most sports, but on the other hand, he's been clearly anti-war from the moment Russia invaded Ukraine while he was playing the Airthings Masters Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event.

How would Sergey Karjakin approach the situation? He's chosen to denounce Russia's no. 1 chess player and many more of his former colleagues.

Here’s a translation of Sergey’s Russian Telegram post. 

"I’ve written about the situation in international chess, almost without talking about what’s going on within the country. But, in connection with the victory of Ian in the Candidates Tournament, I’d like to shed light on the vicissitudes of Russian chess. There follows a long text in which I talk about how the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) is being run from… Israel!

At the start of March some Russian chess players made their choice and signed a letter against the special operation. Among the main “signatories” were the famous grandmasters Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexandra Kosteniuk (a former member of United Russia), Peter Svidler, Andrey Esipenko, Kirill Alekseenko, Alexander Khalifman and Daniil Dubov, who never hid their anti-Russian views.

Also adding their signature were Alexander Motylev, Evgeniy Najer and Mikhail Kobalia, who are the current coaches of the Russian teams, and are actually sitting on budget money.

The cherry on the cake were the signatures of RCF functionaries: Vladimir Barsky, Eteri Kublashvili, Yana Sidorchuk, Dmitry Kryakvin, the editor-in-chief of the magazine “64” Maxim Notkin and, above all – Mark Glukhovsky, the Executive Director of the RCF!

Glukhovsky was the main ideologue and instigator of the letter, and signed it very modestly – “CM, organiser”, somehow forgetting about his post. By the way, Glukhovsky (now the part-time manager of Nepomniachtchi) after the start of the special operation calmly travelled to Israel, from where he continues to run the activity of the RCF online!

The Executive Director has for many years (since Crimea 2014) not hidden his anti-Russian views, and has also openly held back the development of chess in Russia (at some point I’ll write a separate post about that).

Separately, I’d note that RCF President Andrey Filatov DID NOT sign and probably didn’t even know about the existence of the letter until its publication, which, however, does not relieve him of the responsibility for selecting his staff.

But let’s return to Nepomniachtchi.

His signing this letter became his ticket to Western events! He achieved what he wanted and got the chance to take part in the Kasparov “Grand Chess Tour” series, when Kasparov himself emphasised that Ian was playing only because he’d signed the letter. “Russian sportsmen should only take part in events if they sign declarations condemning the war,” Garry Kasparov announced.

Moreover, Ian didn’t limit himself to that letter. Here’s what he wrote on social media on 27.02. “They say that negotiations are being held in Gomel. Please God let the outcome be a ceasefire. I’m afraid that the price for the madness of the recent days will be unimaginable and exorbitant. Can we now afford our future?”

However, Ian didn’t become too principled and didn’t return the money from Russian companies, including those who fell under Western sanctions, who supported him while preparing for the match against Carlsen :)

For myself I’d add that communication between Ian and myself naturally ended after the start of the special operation.

What now? Nepomniachtchi’s victory shouldn’t mislead anyone. Russian professional chess has been in decline lately, and that started before the pandemic and the special operation."

Nepomniachtchi ended his Candidates Closing Ceremony speech, "I really hope that the end of this year will be better than the beginning" | photo: Stev Bonhage, FIDE

"I hope that the federation will finally start to hold major tournaments in Russia, thereby supporting its sportsmen. Until that happens, some of our players have moved their place of residence to other countries and won’t see any point in returning.

The Central Chess Club at Gogolevsky 14 (that’s where the RCF’s offices are), which for many generations of chess players was a cult place, where a huge number of different tournaments of the very highest level were held, risks turning into a liberal interests club like the Yeltsin Center.

I think that RCF President Andrey Filatov needs to decide his position. His term of office ran out already in February, while the upcoming elections were for some reason slated for December, but even that’s not the main thing. I think that if he wants to go down in the history of Russian chess as someone who did a lot for it he has to change his team to those who really love chess and love their country!”