I was amazed to read these. Putting myself in Dvorkovich’s shoes and thinking about his political background, it’s hard to guess what he is thinking and what’s next for him.
The FIDE Council has made a strong statement. In keeping with the lead of the IOC, FIDE is restricting Russian and Belarussian recogniation and state participation. OF particular note is the determination to follow the international sanctions and refuse sponsor money from Russian state affiliated companies. There is a blur in Russian business between private and state enterprise. The oligarchs control many companies, but past experience has shown their control is at the pleasure of the state i.e. Putin.
Of interest is the referral of the 2, including the recent challenger, to Ethics. US Chess has a representative on the Ethics Commission.
While I serve on the Verification Comission (Audit Committee) I am not speaking from any inside information for the FIDE financial statements are posted on its website. FIDE has funds in some Russion banks denominated in rubles. Most funds are held is Spanish and Swiss banks in USD and Euro. The Russian funds are generally used to pay the costs of the rating office in Elista and the Moscow administartive office. The main office is in Switzerland, and team members are scattered around the world with some working remotely.
ADDED: there is an issue I failed to see the 1st time. FIDE does have significant deposits in the European branchs of Sberbank, which is a Russian bank. There has been a run on that bank since sanctions were announced and the ability of that bank to fund all those who wish to close accounts and withdraw funds appears to be in doubt. According to the FIDE 12/31/20 financial statemetns deposits at Sberbank - all translated to EUR but denominated in the currencies mentioned were
EUR account 701,541
USD account (stated in EUR as mentioned) 103630
RUB (stated in EUR) 363,897
The value of the RUB has collapsed world wide. It may buy goods and services inside Russia, but otherwise there is little demand for the currency
FIDE also has acocunts with Gazprombank Switzerland. I do not know what risk there is with this instiaution. That account was demonimated in USD at 12/31/20. There also a small RUB denominated account at Gazprombank Russia.
He is a very brave man I think
chess.com/news/view/dvorkov … -president
This article addresses the question I asked in my original post.
Enemies of the Russian leadership have a bad habit of disappearing and becoming what Orwell called an ‘unperson’.
I haven’t followed FIDE matters closely enough to say whether Dvorkovich is that much of an improvement over the past several FIDE Presidents, but I doubt he’s worse and at this time I don’t see how his resignation would improve things. (BTW, who’d take over?)
The article quotes Nigel Short and Dana Reizniece-Ozola speaking favorably of him. There is also a link to an earlier article in chess.com in which almost all the Ukrainians they interviewed, except Eljanov, said that Dvorkovich should resign. The Ukrainians also spoke in favor of a general ban on Russian players: “We can’t leave our country and play internationally, so why should they be allowed to?” (Eljanov was equivocal about that also.)