"An honor," says chess champion Kasparov after inclusion on Moscow’s extremist list

Garry Kasparov is one of the most outspoken critics of Putin’s Russia. Together with others that have left the country, he in 2022 founded the Anti-War Committee. The group openly calls Putin a “mad dictator”.

The Committee is listed as an “undesirable organization” and in May last year, Kasparov was branded as a “foreign agent” by the Justice Ministry.

Officially, it is the financial monitoring agency that now lists Garry Kasparov among “terrorists and extremists” and in practice, it means that he will have trouble doing financial transactions in Russia. 

“An honor that says more about Putin’s fascist regime than about me,” Kasparov wrote on Twitter (X) after the news became public.

He followed up by hitting back: “.. today would be a good day to add Russia, Putin and all his cronies to the state sponsors of terror list.”

Kasparov was World Chess Champion from 1985 to 2000.