Kasparov, the youngest person to reach world number one at chess, is now on Russia's 'terrorists and extremists' list

Former chess player Garry Kasparov speaks to the press in 2016 – Image: AP

Russia's financial monitoring agency Rosvin Monitoring has added former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, a prominent critic of the Russian government, to its list of “terrorists and extremists”, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday (6).

The list imposes restrictions on individuals' banking transactions and forces them to request approval whenever they want to use their accounts.

Kasparov, 60, fled Russia in 2014 for fear of persecution. His press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia's Justice Ministry added Kasparov and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to its list of “foreign agents” in 2022, subjecting them to burdensome bureaucracy, including financial reporting.

In 1985, when Kasparov was 22, he became the youngest world chess champion ever (no one has broken this record to this day). That year, he defeated another famous Russian chess player, Anatoly Karpov.

Kasparov and Karpov dominated chess in the 1980s, facing each other several times until 1990.

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