Timur Turlov, president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and founder and CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. (market cap $11 billion), who has been subject to personal sanctions by Ukraine since October 2022, was elected president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) on Saturday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
According to a statement posted on the FIDE website, Turlov won at the second round with 110 votes, while his rival Vadim Rosenstein of Germany, recently added to the Myrotvorets database due to his WR Group's operations in Russia, received 85 votes.
Ahead of the election, the Chess Federation of Ukraine (CFU) had stated its opposition to the candidacy of Turlov, who, at age 38, became the second-youngest FIDE president in the organization's history.
In total, according to FIDE, delegates from 196 national chess federations participated in the election. Three candidates vied for the position: in the first round, Turlov received 96 votes, Rosenstein 76, and Jan-Henric Buettner of Germany 20.
Turlov succeeds former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who led the world chess federation for two terms—from 2018 to 2026. In June of this year, he announced plans to run for a third term with Turlov as his vice-presidential running mate; however, in July, Dvorkovich suspended his duties due to EU sanctions imposed against him.
The press release notes that over the past three years, Freedom Holding Corp. has allocated approximately $30 million to the development of chess in Kazakhstan and supported more than 20 major international tournaments under the auspices of FIDE, becoming one of the world's largest private sponsors of the game.
On September 21 of this year, Turlov posted on X (formerly Twitter) describing Ukraine as one of the world's leading chess powers—a nation that "should have its own voice in discussions and decision-making, as well as the opportunity to directly raise issues important to its chess community"—and invited Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine (as listed on his X profile), to accept the position of FIDE Vice President.
Podoliak agreed, stating his desire for "international federations to move away from intrigue and politics."
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Chess Federation, led by Oleksandr Kamyshin, a former strategic advisor to the Ukrainian president, expressed outrage at Podoliak’s actions and appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Budanov, Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky, and Minister of Sports Matviy Bidny to intervene in the situation.
"Under the FIDE statutes, the inclusion of a country's representative in FIDE's leadership requires a nomination from the national chess federation of the country they represent. Therefore, the actions of Tymur Turlov and Mykhailo Podoliak amount to nothing more than an exchange between two private individuals on social media; these actions are unlawful and constitute an attempted hostile takeover of the Ukrainian Chess Federation," stated the announcement on the Ukrainian federation's website.
She emphasized that "Podoliak has no connection whatsoever to the Ukrainian Chess Federation or the Ukrainian chess community, has never assisted or supported the federation in any way, and has had no involvement with FIDE either..."
Sanctions against Turlov were imposed in October 2022, alongside sanctions against Freedom Finance Ukraine LLC (Kyiv)—a major player in the Ukrainian stock market linked to Freedom Holding Corp., the company founded by Turlov. These sanctions subsequently led to the revocation of the license held by the Ukrainian Exchange—one of Ukraine's three stock exchanges—in which Freedom Holding was the largest shareholder, holding a 24.265088% stake.
