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Chennai: A Russian former deputy premier was re-elected Sunday as head of the Worldwide Chess Federation (FIDE), its electoral chairman mentioned, seeing off a Ukrainian challenger who mentioned his place was untenable due to Moscow’s invasion.
A complete of 157 out of 179 nationwide chess associations voted in India to re-elect Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE president, mentioned Roberto Rivello, the chair of the physique’s electoral fee.
Ukrainian grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets gained simply 16 votes. There have been 5 abstentions and one invalid vote.
Quite a few Russian officers have been hit with sanctions because the invasion of Ukraine in February, and Russian opponents have been banned by quite a few worldwide sports activities governing our bodies.
However Dvorkovich, 50, who served underneath President Vladimir Putin as deputy prime minister from 2012-2018 when he was elected FIDE president, has retained his place on the chess physique.
Baryshpolets informed member international locations earlier than the vote in Chennai that Dvorkovich has “super ties to the Russian authorities”.
“You Arkady are answerable for what occurred in Ukraine now. You might be answerable for increase the Russian authorities and Russia’s battle machine. And we as a chess world, how can we afford this?” the Ukrainian mentioned.
However Dvorkovich mentioned that he took “a robust place of tragic occasions in Ukraine, in addition to supported all through the Council selections relating to cutting down Russia’s involvement in FIDE”.
In March Dvorkovich appeared to criticise Russia’s invasion, saying in an interview that his “ideas are with Ukrainian civilians”.
“Wars don’t simply kill priceless lives. Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections,” Dvorkovich informed US information website Mom Jones.
The feedback drew flak in Russia and Dvorkovich later appeared to row again, issuing a press release saying that there was “no place for Nazism or the domination of some international locations over others”.
This was seen as coded help for the Kremlin, which portrays Ukraine as being run by Nazis and accuses Western international locations of looking for to take over Russia’s neighbour by stealth.
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