While chess players are battling it out on the chessboard, GM Igor Kovalenko is fighting for his own and his countrymen’s lives in Ukraine. His fight has now seen him receive an award from the Ukrainian president.

The 34-year-old grandmaster is ranked 65th in the world, but is involved in a far more important battle than chess these days. Kovalenko worked as a volunteer in Kyiv after the Russian invasion and then decided to join the Ukrainian army two months later. Having served in the army for more than a year now, he was honored this week.

On Thursday the grandmaster was awarded the Order “For Courage” of the 3rd degree by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a ceremony in honor of the Jewish New Year in Kyiv.

The Order is awarded “for personal bravery demonstrated in defense of the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for selfless fulfillment of military duty.”

Kovalenko shared a photo with Zelenskyy on his Twitter/X profile.

This is not fake. That’s life. The President awarded me the Order “For Courage, 3rd degree”. pic.twitter.com/OIgT0gZrPx

— GrossLogos (@GmKovalenkoIgor) September 14, 2023

“Receiving the order personally from the president was exciting,” he tells Chess.com in an email. Kovalenko is a part of the Kyiv Jewish Messianic Community, one of the largest Messianic communities in the world.  He explains how he ended up receiving the award, along with 11 other soldiers.

“After a series of selections: applications, service dossiers, recommendations and checks, I remained on the list, which included people much more worthy than me—real terminators.”

As Rosh Hashanah approaches, I met with leaders of Ukraine’s Jewish communities, Rabbis from 26 Ukrainian cities, and Ukrainian warriors of Jewish origin.

I thanked them for their prayers, humanitarian assistance, and efforts to bring the Ukrainian victory closer. pic.twitter.com/YZLr5KE0jN

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 14, 2023

Less than 24 hours after attending the ceremony, the 34-year-old says he returned to the forests somewhere in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces in the past week have been fighting for control over a ruined village.

Kovalenko last year told Ukrainian news website Censor.NET that he worked as a sapper and a freelance chaplain. In the same interview he also talked about the support from Russian and Belarusian chess players. Some of them even sent him a considerable amount of money.

“When I was a volunteer in the first two months of the war, a huge number of chess players from Belarus and Russia sent money. A surprising amount of “quiet” help came from there,” he said. 

“For obvious reasons, I cannot name them. There are few crazy people among Russian chess players, far fewer than in any other segment of Russian society. Therefore, out of 98 people who support me—and in me, the world of freedom of thought in general—there are only two who are quietly rooting for Karjakin and Karpov.”

Kovalenko is not the only Ukrainian chess player known to have taken up arms to fight against the invasion. National team captain GM Oleksandr Sulypa posted this photo shortly after the invasion.

Kovalenko, who was born in Ukraine, is a two-time Latvian champion who played for Latvia at the 2014, 2016, and 2018 Olympiads, but now plays under the Ukrainian flag. He regularly plays in some of Chess.com’s biggest events, recently losing a game against GM Magnus Carlsen in the Aimchess Rapid Play-In, an event where he beat former world champion GM Vladimir Kramnik.

“Most often it comes at the expense of my sleep. This is precisely why I have such a different game on Chess.com,” he says.

“It happens that after my direct duties and then settling into an underground life, I start playing in the rapid championship selection, and then after the games, at night, I get back to work—sometimes in two-three days I sleep only four-six hours. But I look at it philosophically—I’m learning to take important lessons for my worldview from this life.”