Ukrainian president’s senior aide Mykhailo Podolyak slammed Thursday’s statement by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which said it would “explore a pathway” for Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate neutrally at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“#IOC proposes to the world promotion of violence, mass murders, destruction. That’s why it insists Russian athletes should participate in contests as real ‘ambassadors of death’,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Feeling that “sport doesn’t exist outside politics” but “promotes it,” the aide tweeted that “thus, the IOC promotes the Russian anti-human policy.”
#IOC proposes to the world promotion of violence, mass murders, destruction. That's why it insists 🇷🇺 athletes should participate in contests as real "ambassadors of death"… Sport doesn't exist outside politics – sport promotes it. Thus, the IOC promotes the 🇷🇺 anti-human policy
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) January 28, 2023
Earlier on Wednesday, the IOC said the Olympic Council of Asia had offered Russian and Belarusian athletes the chance to compete in Asia. The IOC welcomed such a course of affairs “and appreciated the offer from the Olympic Council of Asia to give these (Russian and Belarusian) athletes access to Asian competitions”.
To prevent Russian athletes from being allowed to participate in the 2024 Games, Ukraine would launch an international campaign, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova retorted that any attempt to squeeze Moscow out of international sport was “doomed to fail”.
But President Zelenskyy’s remark that “any neutral flag of Russian athletes is stained with blood” strikes home hard. There can be no talk of neutrality or smuggling into the Olympics sports representatives of a nation that perpetrated murder, rape and torture.
As President Zelenskyy noted, Russia might use its position to further its “ideological interests”.
He also invited Thomas Bach, the President of the IOC, to the ravaged city of Bakhmut to witness how “neutrality does not exist.”