Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete as “neutrals” after the IOC broadly accepted the Kremlin’s argument that sport is above politics.
It is not, and their participation is anything but neutral; such are the key messages of Athletes of War, a documentary film due to be released in the spring that charts the all-consuming impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At least 10,000 civilians, including more than 560 children, have been confirmed killed by Russia since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to the United Nations. The real number is thought to be considerably higher — at least 22,000 are estimated to have died during the 2022 Siege of Mariupol alone, and US estimates in the summer suggested 70,000 military personnel have died. Nor do the UN estimates include the forcible deportation and reeducation of Ukrainian children.
Athletes of War opens by focusing on the 400 or so top Ukrainian athletes who have died. “It’s not a war against the military — military on military — it’s a war against a nation,” the narrator says as the film opens.
Russia’s war of aggression, seen by many Ukrainians and international jurists as genocidal, is at the heart of the scandal over its participation in the Paris Olympics, which begin in July. The film includes contributions from high-profile Ukrainian athletes, such as Olympic medalist and tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky.
“It has nothing to do with a normal war,” Stakhovsky says, having set aside his tennis whites for military fatigues. “They’re trying to kill all of us and kill our nation.”
Across a wide range of sports, ranging from synchronized swimming to wrestling, the Ukrainian athletes agreed that they are at an immediate disadvantage as they prepare to compete in France. The film emphasizes the psychological and physical threats they face.
“Our conditions are different from those of the Russian athletes. We have missiles flying over our heads,” says wrestler and Olympic medalist Iryna Koliadenko. “We may not wake up . . . for them everything is peaceful.”
Many Ukrainian athletes have no place to prepare and have struggled with no electricity or heat last winter as a result of Russian airstrikes on energy infrastructure. “They should feel what we are feeling every day,” says diver Anna Pismenskaya.
Several athletes lost family members or their homes. “When you put them in the same field as Russian and Belarusian athletes, it’s going to be nowhere near a fair or equal competition,” Koliadenko says. “It’s a mental punishment for Ukrainian athletes to be in the same line-up as Russians.”
In December, 226 Ukrainian athletes signed an open letter urging French President Emmanuel Macron to ban Russian and Belarusian participants. Some have already been approved as “neutral” competitors (that is, as participants without a stated national affiliation) even though they back the invasion of Ukraine, the letter says.
They are “open supporters of the war, which is confirmed by information published on the Internet,” the letter says, listing examples of the athletes publicly supporting the full-scale invasion. No Russian or Belarusian athlete has “spoken out against the killings, against the genocide of the Ukrainian people,” the letter added.
Shots show Russian athletes wearing uniforms with a “Z” on, a gold medalist alongside Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and competitors personally receiving awards from President Vladimir Putin.
Russian athletes travel widely and should know better than anyone else how corrupt and damaged their country is compared to the rest of the world, says athlete Stas Horuna. “They lie to themselves . . . they support [the invasion] openly or they stay silent which is equal to support,” he says. “Russian athletes are cowards.”
Young widows congregate to share their grief and tears in a field in Lviv covered in graves – where another athlete, Mykola Zabavchuk, is buried. “The nation’s youth is dying,” says his mother Larysa.
His father, who has absentes adsunt (the absent are present) tattooed on his arm, repeats the phrase to himself every morning when he goes running. He too broke down on camera — the emotional openness of the men in the film standing in stark contrast to Russia’s official cult of hypermasculinity.
Anastasia Ihnatenko, an acrobat and coach, died in a Russian KH-22 missile attack on a residential building in Dnipro, which also killed more than 40 others.
“It’s their goal, to destroy,” Ihnatenko’s mother says.
Her daughter’s death had knock-on effects on younger generations too. She was a coach in three gyms, meaning a generation of young acrobats lost out on her expertise and support.
The film opens with a solemn montage of people honoring the fallen in Kyiv as they head into the golden domes of St Michael’s monastery, with the burnt husks of destroyed Russian tanks outside, and bandura music playing.
The film also addresses international complicity. The IOC, which would not comment on the film, has “tried to somehow keep Russia in the fold” says AP journalist Eddie Pells. “There’s a relationship there that the IOC is clearly not comfortable getting rid of.” It’s an echo of the way the world tried to keep Russia “in the fold” in the lead-up to its invasion.
It also asks if every Russian is responsible because their government is elected. The answer may be simpler with those athletes who have publicly backed the war of aggression (and many have), than for those who have tried to avoid the issue. In addition, what’s to be done about the more than 200 Russian competitors who have taken foreign nationality, with many opting for Israeli and Serbian papers?
Ukrainians offer little sympathy, pointing out that they rejected their regime in pursuit of freedom, while Russia continued with its path to totalitarianism.
There’s still time for the IOC and France to hear the appeals of Ukrainian athletes and their supporters around the world. But for now, it seems that Ukraine’s sporting dead will far exceed the 155 competitors it sent to Tokyo in 2020.
Perhaps the crowds attending in Paris will give the Russians a taste of the treatment they received at the 1968 Olympics after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. That might offer some comfort to the young Ukrainians remembering the terrible losses suffered by their country.
“Ukraine is part of a civilized modern world we want to create,” karate medalist Stanislav Horuna says. “Russia wants to kill us because of our history, language, and identity. They just want to take everything from us.”
Aliide Naylor is the author of ‘The Shadow in the East’ (Bloomsbury, 2020). She lived in Russia for several years and is now based between London and the Baltic states, working as a journalist, editor, and translator.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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