Monitoring Desk
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that allowing Russia to compete at the 2024 Olympics in Paris would amount to showing that “terror is somehow acceptable”.
Zelensky said he raised the matter with French President Emmanuel Macron. He was of the view that Moscow must not be allowed to use the Olympics for propaganda. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said Belarusian and Russian athletes could compete at the Olympics as neutrals.
Ukraine threatened to boycott Olympics 2024
Ukraine has threatened to boycott Paris 2024 Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete. “Attempts by the IOC to bring Russian athletes back into the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the world that terror is somehow acceptable”, said Zelensky in his nightly video address.
He was of the view that Russia must not be allowed to use the Games or any other sport event as propaganda for its aggression or its state chauvinism. The IOC said this week that Belarusian and Russian athletes could compete as “neutral athletes”, stating that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport”.
But Zelensky contested the argument saying there can be no neutrality in sport as his country’s athletes are dying on the battlefield. He also commented on the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin when the Nazis were in power. “There was a major Olympic mistake. The Olympic movement and terrorist states definitely should not cross paths,” he stated.
The UK government has also denounced the plan to allow “neutral athletes” as a “world away from the reality of war”. The comments from Zelensky came as Russian forces continued bombardment of the Ukrainian region of Kherson into the night, after a day of attacks which left at least three people dead.
