According to media reports, the government in Ukraine has imposed sanctions on 80 Russian athletes and officials.
As the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported on Tuesday (April 18, 2023), more than 80 people from Russian sport are to be sanctioned. The newspaper cites Ukrainian media reports that President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree banning the affected athletes and officials from entering Ukraine for the next 50 years. They are also said to be banned from flying through Ukrainian airspace.
According to the Ukrainian edition of the newspaper “Pravda”, the Ministry of Sports of Ukraine has published a list of sanctions with prominent representatives of Russian sports, including former world boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev and Olympic figure skating champion Yevgeny Plushchenko.
New sanctions – including against Triathlon President Schoigu
According to “FAZ”, current Russian sports officials are also on the sanctions list, such as Ksenia Shoigu, daughter of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu is President of the Russian Triathlon Federation.
Last December, the Ukrainian parliament imposed sanctions on 55 Russian athletes, including figure skater Kamila Valiyeva, who tested positive for the doping drug trimetazidine ahead of the Winter Olympics.
Ukraine’s football legend, record national player Anatoly Timoshchuk, was also sanctioned. On the grounds that he has neither spoken out publicly against the war nor ended his work as an assistant coach at Zenit Saint Petersburg. In the course of the sanctions, among other things, all assets in Ukraine were to be frozen. In addition, athletes were no longer allowed to enter Ukraine for ten years, were not allowed to do business and were stripped of all official honors and titles.
Last week, a delegation from Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matyzin visited occupied areas in the Donetsk region, provoking strong criticism in Ukraine: This is further evidence that “that there is no sport outside of politics”, said Matvii Bidnyi, Deputy Minister of Sports of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Sports had also banned delegations from Ukraine from participating in international competitions with Russians and Belarusians in the future. In the event of violations, the national sports federations are threatened with the withdrawal of their official status.
Controversial IOC decision on admission of Russia
The now apparently new sanctions against other people are a further step in the propaganda duel between Ukraine and Russia, which is also carried out in terms of sports policy. This was further fueled by the decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to return to international competitions under certain conditions. Despite the war of aggression that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since February 2022.
Criticism of the IOC decision came not only from Ukraine, where representatives from politics and sport have already announced that competitions involving Russian athletes should be boycotted, including a possible boycott of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Large parts of Western politics, including Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, and sports associations in Germany opposed the IOC decision to reinstate Russia.
The conditions set by the IOC, the wording of which remains unclear in parts, as well as their implementation, were particularly criticized. Individual athletes should only be allowed to start if they do not actively support Putin’s war. In addition, they must not be under contract with the Russian military or national security authorities. However, this is difficult to verify in the practice of Russian sport and its close ties to the army: in addition to professional soldiers with employment contracts (“Kontraktniki”), there are also a large number of active people who serve as conscripts. Or who are under contract with clubs like CSKA, which are financed by the army.
According to the IOC, an independent committee should deal with the clarification of these questions. Some federations, including the International Athletics Federation and the world federations in gymnastics and biathlon, feel left alone by the IOC and have already decided not to follow the recommendation from Lausanne. They will not allow athletes from Russia and Belarus for the time being.