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10 Feb. () –
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has once again rejected the proposal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the participation of Russian athletes under a neutral flag, and has recalled that the Russian Army already invaded Crimea in 2014 without the need to show symbols no national banners.
“The Russian occupiers destroy normal life without any symbols; this is how the Russian aggression began. Our Crimean peninsula was occupied by Russian soldiers without any insignia,” the Ukrainian president said in a statement posted on the website of the Presidency .
He has also stressed that Russia has loaded several letters of the Latin alphabet –Z and V– with “genocidal ideology”, an alphabet that is foreign to Cyrillic used in the Russian language but that has served Moscow to expand its “racism” no matter what specific color is used.
In fact, Zelenski has uncovered that the invading Russian troops would have given white bracelets to the Ukrainian population in the occupied areas “supposedly so as not to be killed”, however this population has suffered torture and has also been executed by Russian soldiers despite these badges.
With these references, the Ukrainian president has stressed once again that it is not necessary for Russian and Belarusian athletes to carry national banners to sponsor the ideology and aspirations of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“If representatives of a terrorist state appear in competitions (…) will it matter that they are there without their national symbols?” asked Zelensky, who then responded to himself by asserting that “the mere presence” of Russians is “a manifestation of violence and lawlessness”.
Finally, in his umpteenth call for international collaboration to stop the Russian invasion, Zelenski has asserted that safeguarding the values of respect and peaceful life must be the main task of the international community, while Russia has chosen “the path of terror”. that “has no place in the civilized world.”
“If the Olympic principles are destroyed and Russian athletes are allowed to participate in any competition or the Olympic Games, it is only a matter of time before the terrorist state forces them to play along with the propaganda of war,” Zelensky said. , who has concluded that “terror and Olympism are two opposites”.
KILLED UKRAINIAN ATHLETES
On the other hand, the President of Ukraine has referred to the up to 228 Ukrainian athletes who have lost their lives since the outbreak of the war, thus endorsing an argument already used previously by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dimitro Kuleba.
At the time Kuleba, and now Zelenski, have denounced that hardly any Russian athlete has demonstrated to “condemn the terror unleashed by their State.” “There are only a few isolated voices that are fading fast,” the Ukrainian president said.
Likewise, he has put on the table the link between the Russian Army and some national sports federations, since “many athletes” from the Eurasian country also have a “military rank” in the Armed Forces.
“We know that many Russian athletes were associated with the sports clubs of the Russian Army and state security agencies, including athletes who competed in championships and Olympic Games,” Zelensky remarked.
“If murder and missile attacks were an Olympic sport, then we already know which national team would take first place,” he concluded.
The IOC confirmed several days ago its intention for Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in sports competitions under a neutral flag in order to avoid discrimination based on origin and nationality.
This proposal has aroused criticism not only from Ukraine, but also from a large part of its partners, including the Baltic countries, Poland and even the United Kingdom. Some of them have gone so far as to call for a boycott against the Paris Olympics in 2024.
