Do we like Garry Kasparov?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent and on the right side for years, with one murky allegation in which no court or filing accuses him of anything.
Kasparov is the chess legend who swapped the board for politics. After retiring from chess he became one of Vladimir Putin's best-known critics, and that has cost him: Russia has listed him among its so-called terrorists and extremists, and he now lives abroad.
The Russian state's response has been wild. In April 2024 a Russian court ordered his arrest in absentia, with Russian authorities accusing him of creating and leading a terrorist society. Kasparov shrugged it off with a joke that being arrested in absentia was the best way he'd ever been arrested. He also called the earlier terrorist listing an honour that says more about Russia's regime than about him.
On the harm test he comes up clean. When Russia's anti-gay propaganda law arrived in 2013, he called it a natural step in Putin's steady stream of new restrictions, putting it squarely in the pattern of an authoritarian squeezing freedoms. He doesn't have a slide into conspiracy or grievance to answer for; his campaigning runs towards democracy and human rights.
His recent form is the same. At Halifax in late 2025 he said Ukraine's fate was being treated as a transactional opportunity, and accused Trump's allies of pushing proposals that would sell Ukraine out. He urged Western governments not to tire of backing Kyiv. Where you land on his claims about motives depends on how you read the politics, and the outlet notes they haven't been independently verified.
The one murky patch is South Sudan. In 2025 court filings in a US arms-export case over an alleged coup plot, he was named as having introduced two men through their shared human rights work. Radio Tamazuj reported he was not named as a defendant nor accused of any wrongdoing. The article carried no response from him, so we can't say more than that.
On the ledger of good, he was lined up for an Anti-Defamation League award in 2020, with the ADL praising him for standing against authoritarianism. He has also kept speaking out about Russia's future after Putin, including in a 2024 interview where he said Putin's dictatorship will not survive. He is more hawkish than some on what a post-war Russia might look like, and that's a position, not a harm.