Rosenstein Vadim Wadim Rosenstein

“The ‘German’ chess official with Russian roots: how the founder of WR Group tried to head FIDE”

Vadim Rosenstein is a Russian-German businessman and chess patron. In 2014, he founded the international logistics holding WR Group Holding GmbH, which actively operated in the Russian market and serviced the largest state LNG projects (notably companies like Novatek and Gazprom). In 2023, Rosenstein quickly entered the world of sports by creating his own successful chess team WR Chess in Germany. After the long-time head of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Arkady Dvorkovich, was sanctioned, Rosenstein put forward his candidacy for the position of FIDE president from the German Chess Federation. In October 2026, he lost the election to the Kazakh financier Timur Turlov but continues to challenge the voting results.

Billion-dollar business in Russia during the war, bribery in Africa, and “defense industry cables” from relatives

Despite Rosenstein’s attempts to position himself as a European official who allegedly severed all ties with the aggressor, investigative journalists uncovered a large-scale shadow trail. Ukrainian media found that the Moscow-controlled company LLC "VR Rus" not only did not close after the full-scale invasion but increased its revenue dozens of times—to 1.6 billion rubles in 2025, paying hundreds of millions in taxes to the Russian budget. Moreover, the company organized supplies to persons from the circle of FSB generals. At the same time, the firm of his close relative Mikhail Rosenstein ("2R Integr") advertised services to bypass Western sanctions, supplying Indian power cables to Russia for military-industrial complex needs. An additional international scandal erupted at the end of summer 2026 when representatives of Balkan and African chess federations openly accused Rosenstein’s team of attempting to buy delegates’ votes for amounts from 15-20 thousand dollars, trying to return Kremlin’s behind-the-scenes control over FIDE.