MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Chinese Chess Grandmaster Ding Liren will replace Russia’s suspended player Sergey Karjakin at the 2022 Candidates Tournament this summer, a spokesman for the press office of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) announced to TASS on Friday.

The 2022 Candidates Tournament is scheduled to take place in Spain’s Madrid between June 17 and July 7, 2022.

"Representative of China Ding Liren will substitute Karjakin at the Candidates Tournament," the spokesman said. "He [Ding Liren] is the player with the highest [FIDE] rating status as of May 1."

Ding Liren, 29, is currently ranked 2nd in the FIDE Rankings and he participated in the 2018 and 2020 FIDE Candidate Tournaments.

The International Chess Federation announced earlier on Friday that: "Today, May 6th 2022, the Appeal Chamber of the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) has announced its decision to dismiss the appeal presented by Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin."

On February 28, Karjakin published an open letter in which he supported Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. The next day, FIDE condemned the Russian grandmaster for public announcement of his political stance, launching a disciplinary case against him.

On March 21, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) stated that its Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) decided to suspend Russian Chess Grandmaster Karjakin from all competitions for the period of six months.

On February 28, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments referring to a special military operation in Ukraine.

Following the IOC recommendations in late February, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

Karjakin, 32, is currently 18th in the FIDE Rankings List. In 2016, the Russian chess player won the Candidates Tournament and then lost the World Chess Championship’s title encounter to Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.

Karjakin is the winner of the Chess World Cup 2015. He is also the world champion in Rapid Chess (2012) and Blitz (2016).

Reached by a TASS correspondent later in the day, Anatoly Karpov, the 12th World Chess Champion, said commenting on the situation that the 2022 Candidates Tournament this summer might be postponed due to organizational issues.

"It is possible that the Candidates Tournament may be postponed," Russia’s legendary chess player Karpov said. "As far as I know the organizers are faced with some problems and sponsors allegedly failed to allocate promised finances."

Russia’s special military operation

On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as of the beginning of 2014.

Russian President Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.