FIDE Can’t Stay Silent on Donetsk
By Douglas C. · Tue, 03 Nov 2026
FIDE has gone quiet on a Donetsk team in Sochi while Turlov’s new leadership leans on familiar faces. The questions keep rolling in every week post FIDE election. We're taking a closer look at the latest one.
There are moments when a sport has to decide whether a name on a scoreboard is just a name. In October, a women's team called "Friendship of the Peoples of Russia" sat down at the Russian Rapid and Blitz Championships in Sochi, and Chess-Results, according to World Chess, listed it as representing the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. Ukraine's chess federation protested. Two weeks on, FIDE has still not told anyone what it thinks. I find that silence harder to defend than almost any position FIDE might take.
What is known, and what is not
The facts are narrower than the outrage. World Chess reports that the Ukrainian federation protested to FIDE before the event, citing the FIDE Charter, ethics rules and the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that ordered the Chess Federation of Russia to stop regulating chess in Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Peter Heine Nielsen, the Danish grandmaster who serves as the Ukrainian federation's deputy executive director for international relations, said FIDE had not replied. Two days later, World Chess reported that a FIDE spokesperson confirmed no decision has been taken on rating the event and that the FIDE Constitutional Commission has been asked for an opinion.
The legal question is genuinely open, and it is fair to say so. The CAS ruling concerns what the Russian federation does inside the occupied regions, while this event was held in Sochi. According to World Chess, whether there was a breach depends on how the teams were put together, who ran them and whether the Russian federation still exercises authority over chess in those regions. Those are reasonable questions. They are also questions FIDE ought to be able to answer from its own records without a long wait.
Two principles, one convenient delay
FIDE says it is weighing strict compliance with CAS decisions against the right of players to compete in rated events. That sounds even-handed, and I think it hides more than it explains. The rights of individual players matter, and no one should be punished for where they were born. But a team entered under a regional designation tied to an occupied territory is not just a collection of individuals, and that is the very situation the CAS case addressed.
This is not the first time FIDE's handling of the CAS ruling has drawn fire. After the Council suspended the Russian federation in June, ChessBase reported that the Nordic federations and the German federation argued that FIDE's partial implementation undermined the ruling, and Euromaidan Press reported in April that the Russian federation's executive director, Alexander Tkachev, said the ruling conflicts with Russian law. FIDE also pointed to the 2024 Egypt precedent, when tournaments there kept their ratings. It has not said why that case fits this one. Delay, meanwhile, is not neutral. World Chess noted that the monthly rating update at the end of October gave FIDE time to decide. That date has now passed, and I could not find a public answer on whether the Sochi results were rated.
The promise
This is the first real test, and Timur Turlov set the bar himself. On September 22, four days before the vote, Reuters reported that he said any FIDE administration he led would keep following CAS rulings, because FIDE must stay compliant with the Olympic movement. Promises like that are easy to make before taking office, and the first awkward case is when they start to carry weight. I am not claiming bad faith, and nothing in the reporting shows it. I am saying that two weeks of internal discussion on a matter this serious is a long time, and that a clear public timetable would cost FIDE nothing.
New faces, old hands
The reshuffle makes the test harder. World Chess titled its report "New FIDE, Familiar Faces," and the appointments back that up. Emil Sutovsky, FIDE's Director General under Arkady Dvorkovich, is now Chief Executive Adviser. Victor Bologan, a former Executive Director, becomes Special Representative for Global Development. Dana Reizniece-Ozola, a former Managing Director, takes on social development, and Pavel Tregubov is responsible for sport. Beside them are Adil Kozhikhov, a longtime Turlov adviser who heads the President's Office, Darmen Sadvakasov, who chairs the Advisory Board, and Marat Umutpayev in legal affairs.
Continuity is not a sin. Turlov says he wants to keep experienced professionals, and nothing I have read suggests any of them is unqualified. But he also promised new people, and "old guard" is my reading of the list, not a label the people themselves would choose. World Chess quotes no named critics, so the criticism here is mine. What I would ask is simple: when a case like Donetsk lands on the desk of leaders who built today's FIDE, will they treat it as inherited business or as a fresh decision? It also matters that Reuters described Freedom Holding, the company Turlov founded and leads, as FIDE's main commercial sponsor, and that it owns ChessBase, a source cited in this piece. Reuters noted that this raised possible conflict-of-interest concerns. FIDE should say how it keeps business interests away from rulings.
What would settle it
Three steps would help. FIDE should give a date for the Constitutional Commission's opinion and publish it when it arrives. It should say plainly whether results from teams linked to the occupied regions will be rated. And it should explain its process for these decisions. The first weeks of a new presidency are when habits are set, and this is one the chess world will remember.
Sources
- World Chess, "Donetsk Team Competes In FIDE-Rated Russian Championship Despite Ukraine Protest"
- World Chess, "FIDE Seeks Legal Opinion Over Russian Championships After Donetsk Row"
- World Chess, "New FIDE, Familiar Faces: Turlov Keeps Old Guard In Sweeping Reshuffle"
- Reuters via The Star, "Chess-Kazakh Turlov elected FIDE president with Russia, governance issues in focus"
- Reuters via Daily Sabah, "FIDE candidate Turlov backs CAS ruling on Russian players"
- FIDE, "FIDE announces new appointments to the President's Office"
- ChessBase India, "Timur Turlov presents FIDE's new structure and leadership appointments"
- ChessBase, "Chess Federation of Russia suspended after CAS ruling - partially"
- Euromaidan Press, "Aggression cannot be normalized through sport: Ukraine wins landmark chess ruling at CAS"
- UNITED24 Media, "Russian Chess Federation Banned From Holding Events in Temporarily Occupied Regions by Court of Arbitration for Sport"
