I In August 2025 the moment arrived: for the first time since the introduction of the chess world rankings in 1971, no Russian player was in the top 10. For decades, Soviet chess had either simply dominated the sport — from 1948 to 2007 the Soviet Union did not produce the world champion in classical chess in only three years — or, later, at least significantly shaped it. Those times are over. Chess nations such as India, the USA, China and Uzbekistan have now surpassed the former dominance.
This is all the more remarkable because chess in the Soviet Union was regarded as one of the flagship sports that was meant to illustrate the superiority of the Soviet person, and even now, under Putin’s regime, it is used for propaganda purposes. In fact, there would be on paper a Russian player who nominally belongs to the world elite, but has retired from active play: Sergei Karjakin.
In 2016 he was still the challenger in the World Championship match, but there he lost to Magnus Carlsen. Since then Karjakin (who until 2009 played for the Ukrainian federation) has turned to work as a propagandist and war apologist; as a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine he was suspended for six months by the world federation and has not contested a significant tournament since.
The invasion of Ukraine has completely changed the Russian chess world; more than a dozen top players have left the federation, among them Nikita Vitiugov, who until his switch to the English federation was number four on the Russian rating list, and Kirill Alexeenko, who now plays for Austria. This exodus is also reflected in the currently taking place Candidates Tournament: although Russia is represented by Andrei Esipenko in the competition, he sits at the bottom of the standings by halfway through the games.
And the Russian women?
In women’s chess, the situation appears somewhat more stable: with Aleksandra Goryachkina, Kateryna Lagno, and Polina Shuvalova, three Russian players are represented in the current top 12 of the world. The first two also compete in the Candidates Tournament for women, and both are only one point behind the leader, Anna Muzychuk from Ukraine.
Both have also appeared as supporters of the regime, unlike Andrei Esipenko, who apparently tries to maintain a certain distance. For example, by taking part in propaganda tournaments organized by Sergei Karjakin. When, in April 2022, 44 Russian grandmasters finally launched a public appeal demanding an end to the war of aggression against Ukraine, the signatures of both were missing.
Also in other respects they have not spoken out against the Russian aggression, which is notable in the case of Kateryna Lagno, because her partner, the three-time blitz chess world champion Alexander Grischuk, has repeatedly spoken out against the policies of his own country in very clear terms. He protested not only against the war of aggression, but also against the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, and in 2022 announced that he would leave the Russian federation should Sergei Karjakin ever become president.
How exactly Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno stand remains something that can only be read between the lines; the fact that Russian chess remains highly political was evident in the games of the two against Anna Muzychuk. On both occasions the usual handshake before and after the match did not take place.
