Allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Milan–Cortina Paralympics while Russia continues its full-scale war against Ukraine is a disgrace.
More than 650 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed by Russia. Sport does not exist in a vacuum. Forcing Ukrainians to compete alongside representatives of the aggressor is morally unacceptable.
The international sports community must stand for human life, justice and dignity, not normalize aggression.
Six athletes from Russia and four from Belarus will be allowed to compete under their national flags at the 2026 Paralympic Games in Milan-Courmayeur, the Games' governing body confirmed.
While people in Ukraine are dying daily from Russian bombs, drones, and artillery, while torture chambers, mass graves, and the systematic abduction of children continue, the IPC is allowing a state that is waging an illegal war of aggression and actively glorifying it through propaganda and military sports to once again raise its flag at the Paralympics.
Six Russian athletes—representatives of a regime that mocks wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians as spoils of war—will be allowed to compete in Italy under the tricolor, win medals, and have their national anthems played.
French president Emmanuel Macron is saying what everyone’s thinking: Europeans can't let a monster in a bunker in Moscow or a real estate tycoon on a golf course in Florida decide if Europe lives or dies.
"As all the allies, we have to be the one to negotiate this new architecture of security for Europe the day after, because our geography will not change. We will live with Russia at the same place, and the Europeans at the same place. And I don’t want this negotiation to be organised by somebody else."
"Cheap Russian energy stopped in 2022.
There is no way back." - French President Macron.
'Cheap russian energy' is anything but cheap. The cost is measured not in money, but in Ukrainian blood.