Side order

So, on Friday I was wondering why Garry Kasparov was keeping quiet about the Short-Dvorkovich rapprochement, given that Garry's two main proccupations, about which he is usually anything but quiet, are chess, and Russian political influence.

Here's what Malcolm Pein reckons.

Do I believe that? Well it's plausible, kind of, but thing is, does Garry Kasparov strike anybody as the kind of person to stay dumbfounded for very long?

Certainly not the "dumb" part, I'd have said.

Besides, there's also the question of his sidekick, who's not much less voluble than his boss, and generally on the same subjects. But he doesn't seem to have had any more to say on Short-Dvorkovich than Garry. That's odd enough - but this, to my mind, is odder.

I don't even necessarily disagree with all of that - that's not what I find odd about it. It's that if you look at Mig's Twitter account, it is, like Garry's, wall-to-wall Russia-and-Putin.

What's wrong with that? Nothing, except that suddenly, when it comes to FIDE politics, in which the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia is involved - somebody much closer to Vladimir Putin than Kirsan, somebody previously described as being "in the Kremlin chain of command" - the story is Makro. Makro, and nothing but.

As I said on Friday, I don't want to make large assumptions about what people think based on what they haven't said, but still - assuming Garry and Mig really are "dumbfounded", I wonder if they will rediscover their voices any time soon?