Russian athletes cannot be allowed to Olympic Games, Zelensky says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says allowing Russia to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris would indicate that “terror is somewhat acceptable”.

He said he had raised this case with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Moscow should not be allowed to use the Olympics for propaganda, he added.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said Russian athletes and Belarus can compete as neutrals at the Olympic Games.

But Ukraine has threatened to boycott “Paris 2024” if Russian athletes and Belarus are allowed to compete.

Efforts by the International Olympic Committee “to restore Russian athletes to the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the whole world that terror is somewhat acceptable”, Zelensky said in a video statement, the BBC reports.

Russia should not be allowed to use the “Games or any other sports event as propaganda for its aggression or its state chauvinism”, he added.

The International Olympic Committee said this week that Russian athletes and Belarus can compete as “neutral portfolios”, claiming that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport”.

But Zelensky says there can be no neutrality in the sport, while his country's athletes are dying on the battlefield.

He also compared the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when the Nazis were in power.

The “was a major Olympic mistake,” he said. The “Olympic movement and terrorist states should definitely not pass the trail”.

The United Kingdom government has also condemned the plan to allow athletes to compete neutrally as a <x0-worlds away from the reality of war”.