Is Russia banned from the Olympics? Not entirely, but should be

From July 25 to August 11, 2024, the Summer Olympics are held in Paris – and the question of Russian participation is still acute. Back in October 2023, the Russian Olympic Committee was suspended from the competition. However, individual athletes from Russia were allowed to participate under the neutral flag – and 15 of them made it to Paris after all.

Is welcoming the representatives of the aggressor state to the Olympics acceptable in any capacity? Should they be allowed to stand alongside Ukrainians and other participants under the neutral flag during this celebration of athletic excellence, global unity, and cultural diversity? 

Is Russia banned from the 2024 Olympics?

Russian Olympic Committee was suspended from the competition for incorporating regional sports organizations from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and, therefore, violating the territorial integrity of the NOC of Ukraine. However, individual athletes from Russia (and Belarus) were allowed to participate under the neutral flag with no official representation of their countries, flags, anthem, etc.

Should Russia be banned from the Olympics?

The answer, perhaps, can be found in the Olympic Chapter itself. It outlines seven fundamental principles of Olympism – and Russia has been violating every single one of them. In sports, when you break the rules, you get banned. Today, banning the aggressor state and its representatives protects those core Olympic values and emphasizes their worth.

Russia uses the competition to achieve its own political goals and deter attention from its military interventions. Russian athletes have been caught supporting the war and even agitating Russians to join the Armed Forces. They use training facilities in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and receive awards from the same state that launches deadly missiles.

No equal competition under the shelling

The Olympic spirit requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play, the Olympic Charter states. Russia’s war of aggression automatically negates that principle and leaves no place for equal competition. There is nothing equal, fair, or neutral about 489 Ukrainian athletes and coaches who have been killed during the full-scale invasion. 

Ukrainian athletes keep training and competing despite shellings and constant air raid alerts, despite their homes being occupied, and their friends and family being in danger of Russia’s attack. Many have been left without sports facilities: as of July 2024, more than 500 were destroyed or damaged, including 15 Olympic training bases. One more point of the Olympic Charter principles – “the practice of sport is a human right” – is losing its relevance here due to the actions of the aggressor state. 

The same goes for the principle of “blending sports, culture, and education”: it is not just sports infrastructure that is suffering from Russia’s war. Since February 24, 2022, Russia has damaged more than 3,400 educational institutions, 365 of which were utterly destroyed. Cultural institutions have not had it better: more than 2,013 were damaged, in addition to 1085 objects of cultural heritage, and thousands of museum exhibits have been stolen.

Shoulder straps under a sports uniform

The Charter says that the goal of Olympism is to build a peaceful society. However, Russians have no problem training in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, in the places that were forcefully taken from Ukraine and Ukrainian athletes. 

Sports in Russia are inevitably linked to military structures, and that is not an accident but a structure formed in the Soviet era. For instance, there are two leading sports clubs in Russia: CSKA (Central Sports Club of the Army) and Dynamo. The founders of these clubs are the Ministry of Defense, the FSB, the Rosgvardia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other law enforcement agencies.

CSKA’s charter defines the organization’s goal as “the development of physical culture and sports in the Russian Armed Forces.” Therefore, athletes actively campaigned to join the Russian Armed Forces, recording propaganda videos with words of support. Immediately after the Russian occupation of Crimea, CSKA opened its branch there and set up a training base.

Russian athletes also regularly appear in public in military uniforms and receive military awards. Biathlete Eduard Latypov, who took part in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, received not only a bronze medal but also the rank of lieutenant and the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd Class. 

Gymnast Nikita Nagorny was an Olympic champion in 2021. He is also the head of the massive children’s and youth “military-patriotic” organization Yunarmiya, a structure established by the Russian Defense Ministry that educates children in a militaristic spirit.

Even those Russian athletes who were admitted to the 2024 Games in Paris in neutral status are no exception to this pattern. At least 10 out of 15 have links to Russia’s military or security services and/or have supported Russia’s invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine: performed in the temporarily occupied Crimea after 2014, participated in propaganda events or pro-war actions on social media. That includes road and track cyclist Tamara Dronova, trampoline jumper Angela Bladtseva, cyclist Alena Ivanchenko, canoeists Aleksei Korovashkov and Olesia Romasenko, swimmer Evgenii Somov, tennis players Mirra Andreeva, Pavel Kotov, Diana Shnaider and Elena Vesnina.

War undercover

Once, the Olympic Games were such an essential event for Ancient Greece that all wars were suspended during their holding. Today, the sports festival, aimed at uniting people across five continents, has been used as a tool to divert attention from wars and armed conflicts.

Over the past 15 years, Russia has started wars against neighboring countries three times under the disguise of sports competition. The attack on Georgia took place on the opening day of the 2008 Olympics. The occupation of Crimea was prepared under the cover of the Winter Olympics in Sochi: some of the troops guarding the sporting events even took part in the invasion. And the full-scale war with Ukraine began right after the 2022 Olympics and during the Paralympics.

The aggressor country took this “habit” from the USSR, which, in 1980, under the cover of the Olympic Games, sent troops to Afghanistan. 

Five rings, one Mordor

Russia widely uses sports achievements as a part of its propaganda narratives, the same ones that fuel its wars. And Russian Olympians, one way or another, become accomplices in it. When Ukrainian athletes have to defend their country on the battlefield, and Ukrainian stadiums are ruthlessly bombed by Russia, neutrality – whether of flag or public opinion – is a stance of its own. And this stance does not correspond well with the Olympic spirit.

The last principle states that belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter. For years, the world has not seen that compliance from Russia. 

An international sports festival is turning into an instrument of propaganda and cover-up of crimes as long as representatives of Russia remain among the Olympians. And they should not have the privilege of competing on an equal footing with those who are truly devoted to building a peaceful society with respect for human rights, equality, and fairness.