Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin has said the response to his ban from world champion Magnus Carlsen was unexpected, after the Norwegian expressed doubt that suspending Karjakin for his stance on the Ukraine conflict was the right thing to do.
“Of course I don’t agree with Karjakin on anything, but whether it’s right to ban people for opinions that we don’t tolerate? I’m not sure,” Carlsen, 31, told Norwegian outlet VG in an article published this week.
Karjakin was handed a six-month suspension in March by world chess authority FIDE after his vocal support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the military offensive in Ukraine.
Responding to Carlsen’s comments on Telegram, the 32-year-old Karjakin wrote: “Support arrived from where it wasn’t expected.”
Carlsen – who defeated Karjakin in a tense world title battle in 2016 – said he fundamentally disagreed with his rival’s opinion on Ukraine but suggested that suspending Karjakin risked turning him into a “martyr” in his homeland.
“Karjakin… has always been consistent about where he stands politically,” added Carlsen.
“It is also human that if you have an opinion that is extreme, and meet resistance, then you go even harder on it. In that sense, it’s not surprising.”
Karjakin was born in Crimea but switched allegiances to Russia in 2009. He was a staunch supporter of the reunification of the peninsula with Russia in 2014, and at the onset of the military operation in Ukraine in February expressed his unreserved support for Putin.
Karjakin has suggested that the FIDE ban announced on March 21 was an attempt to deprive him of the chance to compete at the Candidates Tournament – the winner of which earns a shot at Carlsen and the world title.
A former world blitz and rapid champion, Karjakin has suggested he could set up his own organization to rival FIDE.