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The satellite chess federation (FIDE) said connected Wednesday (October 22, 2025) it was addressing erstwhile satellite champion Vladimir Kramnik’s nationalist attacks connected U.S. grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky, whose abrupt decease this week astatine 29 has prompted outrage and calls for action.
The origin of Naroditsky’s decease has not been made public.
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky told Reuters the organisation was “looking into” Kramnik’s year-long run accusing Naroditsky of online cheating.
Naroditsky, a fashionable commentator and streamer, denied immoderate wrongdoing and appeared visibly distressed successful his last Twitch broadcast past weekend, wherever helium referred to the toll the contention had taken connected him, according to the now-deleted video.
World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura condemned Kramnik’s behaviour successful a watercourse pursuing Naroditsky’s death, utilizing an expletive to denounce the Russian’s behaviour. Former satellite champion Magnus Carlsen told viewers successful a abstracted broadcast that Kramnik’s attraction of Naroditsky was “horrible”.
Indian grandmaster Nihal Sarin said connected X that Kramnik “needs to wage for what he’s doing,” alleging that Naroditsky had been nether “immense stress” from the accusations. Chess streamer Nemo Zhou besides urged FIDE to intervene, calling the concern “unacceptable”.
FIDE expressed condolences to Naroditsky’s household and said it would honour him with a peculiar grant recognising his contributions arsenic a player, teacher and commentator.
Kramnik, who has made akin nationalist accusations against different players successful caller years, told Reuters, “I’d alternatively archer the communicative successful whole, nary privation commenting connected Emil Sutovsky statement, but volition remark connected FIDE president (Arkady Dvorkovich) statement, if it volition appear.”
Kramnik, the satellite champion from 2000-07, is wide considered 1 of the top players successful the sport.
Naroditsky, a Stanford postgraduate and erstwhile satellite under-12 champion whose parents were Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union, was a starring fig successful online chess with hundreds of thousands of followers crossed YouTube and Twitch. He finished ninth successful past year’s blitz satellite championship.
