The invasion of Ukraine – the chess angle

Yesterday was spent in front of the television watching events in Ukraine unfurl.

I opted for Sky News.

The adverts were irritating – and the photo footage repeated – but they pulled in the important personalities, starting with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, and were across the big stories.

They lacked a top military analyst when it was clear that the Russian advance was being held despite the Ukrainians being hopelessly outnumbered and inferior in weaponry.

Even if they are vanquished, it would seem the invasion force of 190,000 would be insufficient to take the whole of Ukraine.

The rationale of Putin and his Foreign Secretary, with frequent castigation of the ruling Ukraine powers as Nazis, was baffling given the resemblance of events to Sudetenland in 1938.

Sky in the evening also interviewed the chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov, who was world champion for 20 years and in my opinion the greatest chess player of all time.

He has also been a constant critic of Putin.

Ironically the only other contender as greatest player in my lifetime would be Bobby Fischer who broke the Soviet hegemony of chess by beating Boris Spassky in Reyjavik.

Sadly after this his personality deteriorated and he was never the same force either on or away from the chess board.

Kasparov could have reminded us that he has warned of Putin for years but did not do so.

The word “I” was too often to be heard from politicians and ex-politicians when interviewed on the invasion.

He reminded us of Putin’s colossal wealth and attacking Oligarch wealth which, in his opinion, was the only conceivable way of degrading him.

I can only hope he is co-opted to the anti-Putin allied movement, if only for his grandmaster chess mind.

In chess – if you commit yourself too whole-heartedly to one attack – you create vulnerability on the board.