The International Chess Federation (FIDE) apologized and swiftly removed Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin from its March 2026 classical ratings list, where he had briefly appeared at No. 10 due to an unregistered tournament and games, displacing world champion D Gukesh to 11th. The incident reignited debates over Karjakin's exclusion from chess since his 2022 ban for supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
FIDE's March 2026 classical ratings, released over the weekend, initially listed 36-year-old Sergey Karjakin at world No. 10 with 2750 Elo, pushing India's reigning champion D Gukesh Dommaraju (2748) to No. 11 and excluding Indians from the top 10. Magnus Carlsen remained No. 1 at 2840. The anomaly stemmed from an oversight approving the 'Russian Chess Crown' tournament—breaching registration rules under Article 0.2.1—plus two private rated games in Moscow where Karjakin defeated an 8-year-old opponent rated 1549. Karjakin posted 'Surprise!😉' on X before FIDE acted.
FIDE's Qualification Commission deleted the event and games, restoring Gukesh to No. 10 and reverting Karjakin to inactive status, as he has been since 2022 for lack of rated events. The Russian flag also erroneously appeared on FIDE pages, violating neutral status rules for Russians. 'Due to an oversight in the approval process, the Russian Chess Crown match was included... in breach of regulations,' FIDE stated. 'Sergey Karjakin’s status has been changed to inactive, and he has been removed from the list of active players.' The federation apologized and pledged process improvements amid ties to its December 2025 General Assembly easing some Russian restrictions.
Social media erupted in outrage, with critics demanding a lifetime ban: 'Outrageous: @FIDE_chess reinstated 🇷🇺 chess player Sergey Karjakin... due to his insanely active support of 🇷🇺 invasion of 🇺🇦.' The episode underscores persistent chess-politics tensions.
Born in 1990 in Simferopol, Crimea, to a lower middle-class family, Karjakin emerged as a prodigy, training at Ukraine's Kramatorsk chess school—a talent factory. He became the youngest grandmaster ever at age 12 in 2002, holding the record for 19 years until Abhimanyu Mishra surpassed it in 2021; at 12, he placed second to then-youngest world champion Ruslan Ponomariov. Confident, he predicted world champion status by 16.
His family sacrificed jobs and relocated over 1,000 km to Kramatorsk for his training. 'We had to leave our jobs and move to Kramatorsk. That was a hard decision... We sacrificed everything so that he could become world champion,' his father Alexander said in the documentary Sergey by Alexander Turpin. His mother Tatyana cited a lack of grandmasters and support in Crimea. Trainer Alexander Alexikov called him 'a dragon that eats everything,' training nine hours daily. The school closed when Karjakin was 13, prompting a return to Simferopol without support until age 19, when the family accepted Russian citizenship to boost his career.
Karjakin earned a world title shot in 2016 against Carlsen, forcing a tie-break, but a decade past his prediction. In 2022, FIDE banned him six months for pro-Russia statements on the Ukraine invasion. He boycotted neutral-flag events, backed military efforts and chess in occupied areas, lost elite invites like Norway Chess, faced EU sanctions in 2025, ran unsuccessfully for Russian Chess Federation president, received the 'For Merit to the Fatherland' medal, and became a senator in Russian-controlled Crimea's parliament since September 2024.
