Fide's Russian "partners" include Gazprom, Phosagro (fertiliser), Norilsk Nickel, Alrud (a big Russian law firm) and Rosseti Lenenergo (an electricity supplier).
It would be right for Fide to seek to divest itself of such Russian influence and find alternative funding. But it won't be easy. Those Russian companies are very lucrative, and what for Fide are substantial tranches of cash, to them are no more than pocket money.
Gazprom, for example, is basically a licence to print money. It has so much money sloshing around, it doesn't know what to do with it all.
Paraphrasing Balzac: Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime.
That may not be true in every case, especially in a developed western economy, but it does apply to the vast fortunes that have been made in Russia.
This is a statement by the Ukrainian Chess Federation about recent events. It's a translation of the Ukrainian-language original on the UCF site.
I think we can all support its reasonable request for Fide to divest itself of Russian influence, especially of Russian funding.
As for tournament events in Russia, Fide has already decided to host this year's Olympiad at another venue, yet to be arranged.
//Appeal to the chess community, FIDE, ECU and all national chess governing bodies!
The Russian Federation carried out an unprovoked treacherous military attack on Ukraine, violating all norms of international law and humanism. The cities and villages of our country, its capital Kyiv, are being brutally bombed by Russian missiles and bombs. Houses are being set on fire, civilians are suffering, and women and children are dying. There are fierce battles with the aggressor.In such circumstances, we believe that the international chess community cannot stand aside from condemning the crimes before humanity that are happening before our eyes. We ask all chess communities to support Ukraine, which is shedding blood for its independence and sovereignty.
We call on the European Chess Union and all national federations to immediately assess these developments. FIDE is not ready to recognize a war as a war and a crime as a crime, and has finally gone bankrupt, literally and figuratively. So far, none of the FIDE leaders has condemned the crimes committed against Ukraine. All bank accounts and sponsors of FIDE have come under sanctions, and FIDE itself remains headed by a close aide to the Russian President Putin - Arkady Dvorkovich.
We ask all national federations to ask FIDE to convene the General Assembly outside Russia and Belarus to condemn the conduct of the FIDE leadership and re-elect its governing bodies, to ban all international chess events in Russia (including the World Chess Olympiad) and to ban participation of the reps of the Russian Federation in new FIDE elections.
We also hope for the appropriate assessment and punishment of famous grandmasters who openly supported the criminal aggression against Ukraine - former world champion Anatoly Karpov, Sergei Karyakin and Sergei Shipov.
Members of the national chess team of Ukraine
Ukrainian Chess Federation//
Source (in Ukrainian language):
https://www.ukrchess.org.ua/index.html