Ukraine’s Sports Minister Matvei Bidny says he is “outraged” by the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to lift sanctions on Russian athletes and has called on IOC President Kirsty Coventry to visit Ukraine.
“Together with all Ukrainians and the entire clean sport community around the world, I am extremely outraged. This decision is extremely unfair to every athlete playing by the rules and is a complete disrespect to the memory of the hundreds of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia,” Bidny wrote in response to a question from DW.
Bidney said Coventry should come to Ukraine to “see the reality with his own eyes”.
The Sports Minister said, “I want her to stand on our train platforms and see our defenders saying goodbye to their children before leaving for the front lines. I want her to visit our ruined sports academies and meet our young athletes who have to train under missile sirens. I am absolutely convinced that after seeing this firsthand, any talk of ‘neutrality’ or ‘procedural compliance’ will stop immediately.”
A legal move?
In its statement released on Tuesday, the IOC said an analysis by its Legal Affairs Commission found that the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) no longer incorporated any regional sports organizations in the territories under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee.
Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev welcomed the IOC’s decision, saying it should clear the way for Russian athletes to make a full return to international sport.
However, his Ukrainian counterpart, Bidny, said that this was misleading as the ROC had actually excluded all 89 of its regional sports organizations, not just those in the conquered Ukrainian territory.
“Only a direct boycott of Ukrainian territories would be perceived as a sign of weakness inside Russia. It would be a de facto admission that these territories do not belong to them – which is the absolute truth. I simply do not believe that the IOC fails to understand this. This is a deliberate decision to ignore reality, which completely ruins their own credibility.”
DW has contacted the IOC for comment on this matter.
Russia has been barred from international sporting competitions since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the IOC suspending Russia’s Olympic Committee in 2023. At both Paris in 2024 and Milano Cortina in 2026, some Russian athletes were still able to compete as neutrals, but only if they could prove that they did not support the war and had no ties to Russia’s military or security forces.
In 2023, Bidni said in an interview with DW that calling Russian athletes “neutral” meant supporting murder. Three years later, Ukraine’s sports minister greeted the latest IOC decision with an equally powerful response.
“This sends a dangerous message of complete impunity to the entire world,” Bidni wrote.
Attacks continue almost daily
Recently, Ukrainian drone strikes set fire to an oil refinery, fuel depot and a port in southern Russia. Kiev described the attacks as retaliation for Russia’s almost daily attacks on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure since Moscow launched the invasion.
Bidny said, “For Ukraine, this is a matter of survival. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has killed 688 Ukrainian athletes and coaches. In addition, 911 sports infrastructures have been ruined or damaged.”
Vladislav Heskevich’s Olympic moment was “stolen” as a result of some of these athletes being honored at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The Ukrainian athlete was barred from competing in the men’s division because he was wearing a helmet that displayed images of more than 20 Ukrainian athletes who have died since Russia began the invasion.
The fight to stop the ‘moral failure of the entire sporting world’
Ukraine’s sports minister said the country would fight the IOC’s decision to “protect the true values of sport”.
“Symbols of an aggressive state have no place at international sporting events,” Bidni said. “We cannot allow the world to forget the cost of this war, and we will continue to expose how Russia uses sports as a tool for war propaganda.”
Asked whether he agreed with Coventry’s position that it is unfair for governments to punish athletes for their actions, Bidni disagreed. The Sports Minister said that it is not a matter of a person being punished for his passport, but it is a matter of accountability.
“You cannot celebrate ‘human dignity’ on the Olympic stage while your institution turns a blind eye to the ongoing murder of Ukrainian athletes,” he said.
In Tuesday’s statement, the IOC confirmed that the previous requirement that neutral athletes demonstrate that they have no ties to Russia’s military and security agencies and have not publicly supported the war has been removed.
Coventry, however, said the IOC would continue to monitor Russian athletes’ social media posts.
“This is such a strong leverage that we will need at any time to decide who will be willing and eligible to come to any Olympic Games,” he said.
The ban on playing the Russian national anthem and displaying the flag also remains in place. Bidny believes that if the Russian flag flies at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, it would be “a moral failure for the entire sporting world.”
Jonathan Crane contributed to this report.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold