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Russia will continue to work on lifting sanctions against Russian chess players — Kremlin

At the moment, Dmitry Peskov noted, "both the West and Ukraine are exerting quite open and undisguised pressure on other countries within the framework of FIDE"

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. Russia will continue its efforts to lift restrictions on Russian chess players, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Chess Federation, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing.

"Our chess federation will continue to work so that eventually all sanctions will be lifted. We hope that this work will bring results in time and that the balance of power in FIDE will change in this particular case," he said.

Peskov also said that Russia is grateful to the countries that supported the initiative to admit Russian and Belarusian chess players to competitions at the General Assembly of FIDE. "I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues from Kyrgyzstan, who openly spoke in support of Russia and made such proposal - to lift all sanctions against Russian and Belarusian athletes," he said, adding that Kyrgyzstan was not the only country supporting Russia.

At the moment, Peskov noted, "both the West and Ukraine are in fact exerting quite open and undisguised pressure on other countries within the framework of FIDE." "This is no secret and everyone knows it well. Unfortunately, even FIDE is not free from the politicization of sport and the politicization of the chess world. This is also a fact that, unfortunately, must be recognized," Peskov added.

The FIDE General Assembly rejected the proposal to fully admit Russian and Belarusian athletes to tournaments - with the return of the flag and anthem. Delegates voted to adopt a decision on partial admission (team competitions for children under 12 and athletes with disabilities), but after consultations with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

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Foreign policy Dmitry Peskov Chess

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