A new report has alleged that four Russian players have been given the green light to play in the Olympic Games despite breaking or being suspected of breaking neutrality rules.
The human rights law organization Global Rights Compliance says the quartet are among a large group of athletes from the country who have broken the rules by either supporting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or by working for the Russian military or intelligence services. Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russian and Belarussian athletes are only allowed to participate in the Olympics under a neutral status. They are also exempt from being part of the opening ceremony.
As part of the guidelines set out by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), these neutral athletes can only compete if they don’t show flags, emblems or the anthems of their country. They also must not have publicly supported the invasion of Ukraine or be contracted to the military.
Four-time Grand Slam doubles champion and former world No.13 in singles Elena Vesnina has been named as one of these athletes to have violated the rules, according to the Global Rights Compliance. She has been accused of using her Twitter account (now X) to retweet a post about Vladimir Putin outlining his plans to annex Crimea. On March 7th she is said to have linked an Instagram post about the killing of three Russian soilders in ukraine with the text saying “The Ministry of Defence spoke about the heroism of three more Russian soldiers”. Later that month, it is claimed she liked a post about gymnast Ivan Kuliak who displayed a pro-war “Z” symbol at a medal ceremony during the Gymnastics World Cup in Doha.
French Open semi-finalist Mirra Adreeva is said to have liked an edited video of speeches by Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the video, Putin says “the only thing that bothers us in this case is how to not catch cold at [Zelenskyy’s] funeral”. The text says “Legendary phrase” with laughing emojis, a Russian flag, and a heart.
Diana Shnaider, who has won two WTA titles this season, is accused of breaking rules by liking two Instagram posts during the same month the war began in February 2022. The first post was a video of media executive Margarita Simonyan justifying the invasion of ukraine. The other video is of Aleksandr Mikhailov reciting a poem which disparages those who are ashamed of being called Russian and openly claims that Ukrainians are Russians.
Finally, men’s world No.60 Pavel Kotov is suspected of breaking the rules by being a former member of the Central Sports Club which has links to the Russian Ministry of Defence. Regarding Kotov, the report states ‘whilst it is unclear whether ties have been fully severed, affiliation with the CSKA would mean Kotov is directly subordinated to the Russian military and violates the IOC’s Principles on prohibited conduct.’
All four tennis players named in the report have not been given an opportunity to respond so far. Reuters news agency quotes the IOC as saying they can’t comment on individual cases highlighted in the report or on the decisions of the review panel to allow these athletes to participate in the Olympics.
It has been claimed that 33 of 59 neutral athletes entered into this year’s Olympic Games have broken IOC rules.
Global Rights Compliance is a is a not-for-profit organisation specialising in international humanitarian, criminal and human rights law. In recent years they have been working closely with Ukraine with one of their tasks being helping the government ‘adopt legislation, regulations, and best practice facilitating the prosecution of atrocity crimes committed during the Russian-Ukrainian War.’
The Olympic Games opening ceremony will take place next Friday with the tennis tournament starting on July 27th.
