Richest who? Ex-Grandmaster Kasparov has Elon Musk counting change in Russia-Ukraine row

Elon Musk’s tweets have polarised Twitter yet again after he decided to organise a poll on the micro-blogging site over the recent annexation of four Ukrainian territories by Russia. In the process, the billionaire confronted Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who is also known as a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Musk confronted Kasparov after the the Tesla CEO held a poll on ‘Ukraine-Russia peace’, an idea which was labelled as ‘moral idiocy’ by the grandmaster. Musk’s poll was seeking votes on the re-election of annexed regions under UN supervision, assured water supply to Crimea and the neutrality of Ukraine. Musk even said that Crimea (which Putin annexed in 2014) was part of Russia since 1783. 

“This is moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage & sacrifice, and puts a few minutes browsing Crimea on Wikipedia over the current horrific reality of Putin's bloody war”, Kasparov reacted. “Who are you to reward years of Putin's war crimes with Ukrainian blood and land? To declare done what evil crimes must be undone? It is not too late to delete this and say you were high. Please do”, read his other tweet.

In response to Kasparov’s critical remarks, Musk reminded him of the loss his aerospace company SpaceX incurred while helping out Ukraine with Starlink. “We gave Starlinks to Ukraine & lost $80M+ in doing so, while putting SpaceX & myself at serious risk of Russian cyberattack. What have you done besides tweet?”, he questioned.

Answering Musk's question, several netizens came in Kasparov's defense reminding the latter of the times the Chess grandmaster was jailed for speaking against Putin. When the Russian President launched a crackdown on prominent political opponents, Kasparov fled the country in 2013 and currently lives in New York. He was first jailed for five days in 2007 for his criticism of Putin and was beaten up by the Police in 2012 during a protest, The Guardian reported. 

Even in his latest thread of tweets, Kasparov believes that Putin's loss in the war against Ukraine is the only way of attaining 'real peace'. As for the threat of a nuclear war, which despite being unlikely might be a possible outcome of the war, according to Musk, Kasparov says that the "greatest nuclear threat comes from concessions to Putin, not standing up to him".