Players being banned from competitions, tournaments being stripped from Russia and heated arguments between top players – the chess world is in crisis.
Many sporting bodies followed the International Olympic Committee 's guidance and stopped Russian and Belarusian athletes from being able to compete under their national flags.
FIDE, chess' governing body, went one further. Russian players have essentially been banned from tournaments – a decision made at an emergency meeting of the sport's top brass on Sunday.
In a statement it said: "No official FIDE chess competitions and events will be held in Russia and Belarus.
"Following the call from IOC, the FIDE Council decides that no Russian and Belarusian national flag be displayed or anthem be played in all FIDE-rated international chess events."
Those declarations also meant that Moscow has been stripped of the 2022 Chess Olympiad, which was scheduled to take place in the Russian capital in July.
The invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent sanctions placed on Russian athletes, has caused division among chess' top players – known as grandmasters.
Oleksandr Sulypa, captain of the Ukrainian chess team, was due to play at a tournament in Iceland this week – instead, he is defending his country and has been pictured with a shotgun in his hand.
"I'm going to defend my country," he told Icelandic outlet Morgunblaðið, before declaring: "I'm not afraid of death, and I'm ready to die for my country."
American player Hikaru Nakamura has been raising money for affected Ukrainians on streaming platform Twitch, and declared his support for those people whose homeland is under attack.
"It has been many years since I was in Ukraine, but to see what is happening now is heartbreaking. Stay strong," he wrote.
German grandmaster Georg Meier shares a similar opinion, and has referred to under-fire Russian player Sergey Karjakin as a "disgrace to the chess world".
That comment came after Karjakin shared a now-deleted Tweet, in which he claimed a taxi driver in Dubai had told him that "Russia is great" and that the UAE is "not so stupid as Ukraine".
The Russian has also been sanctioned by FIDE for a public show of support for the invasion.
Karjakin also said: "For many years, [FIDE] has existed on Russian money. World cups, world championship matches, candidates tournaments. Everything was sponsored by Russia.
"With its decisions, FIDE will worsen the situation of chess players all over the world."
In response, chess' governing body wrote: "FIDE Council condemns any public statement from any member of the chess community which supports unjustified military action and brings the case of chess grand masters Sergey Karjakin and Sergey Shipov to the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission."
Apparently not content with the outrage he had already caused, Krajakin went on to lash out at website Chess 24 for, in his view, not getting involved in the debate.
"What was originally a chess portal continues to be cowardly silent. Forgetting that I spent a dozen streams there, where I played with everyone. Chess24 doesn’t exist for me anymore," he wrote.
In response, a message from Chess24 was released through Magnus Carlsen – the star who beat Karjakin to keep his world chess champion crown in 2016.
In that statement, the website said it was "devastated" by military conflict in Ukraine and that it "strongly condemned" the Russian invasion.
