Ukraine is losing heavily under the poor leadership of its comedic president Volodymyr Zelensky who believes photoshoots and propaganda documentaries can deceive the world.
But as the world is beginning to walk towards a path of political neutrality and has started realising that banning Russian athletes were unjust, Zelesnky is back with his classic tactic of blaming everyone but himself.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised the notion of political neutrality in the field of sports. Emphasising that Russian athletes should be banned from participating in the 2024 Olympics, Zelensky stated their presence in sporting events would mean that the world has accepted “Russia’s occupation of his country”.
His remarks came in the wake of the Olympic Council of Asia suggesting that Russian and Belarusian athletes should be allowed to participate in the games. Zelensky noted that autocrats often use sports to circulate their problematic ideologies and emphasised that Ukraine would boycott the 2024 Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes take part in it.
Zelensky further insinuated that while Ukraine’s athletes are fighting and dying in war, the Russian ones are not facing the brunt of the war.
Ukraine’s falsehoods unveiled
Zelensky’s claims are quite irrational, untruthful and far from reality as in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the entire bodies, institutions and organisations which govern sports banned Russian athletes and sportspersons from competing in the games.
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While the entire Western mainstream media was circulating false propaganda against Russia and vilifying Vladimir Putin, Russian athletes and sportspersons became targets of the onslaughts of heavily prejudiced Western-dominated sports bodies and institutions.
As Russian athletes and officials were banned from competing at the Birmingham 2022 World Games. The move followed a vote held by the Games’ Organising Committee.
Continuing the atrocity on Russian athletes, in March, the FIS barred Russian athletes for the 2021-22 season. The ban was extended in October with the Skiing’s governing body announcing that Russian athletes will continue to be banned from its competitions. Similarly, FIFA and UEFA banned all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, from taking part in FIFA and UEFA competitions.
Even Formula One could not help itself from falling into the political trap laid by Biden, Macro and Leyen against Russia, Formula One joined other sporting organisations in promoting the nefarious agenda of the US and Europe by announcing that it will no longer race in Russia following termination of its contract with the promoter of the Russian Grand Prix.
But the bias against Moscow could not have been more blatant than what occurred during the Australian Open. The Russian flag was banned from the Melbourne Park precinct during the game following a complaint from Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia.
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It’s unfortunate that Zelensky is trying to mislead the world into believing that it is the Ukrainian athletes who are being discriminated against. The shameless display of political prejudice exhibited by sporting organisations and bodies while introducing bans on Russian athletes is part of a wider strategy to destroy and ostracise Moscow.
Zelensky criticised the concept of neutrality, despite it being one of the most fundamental and important principles of sports, because he realises that in a neutral world, the realities of the Ukrainian military’s brutalities would expose the systematic falsehoods and clandestine narratives of the US and Europe. Zelensky has no right to be decrying discrimination when the Russian athletes are being unfairly banned and discriminated against. But fortunately, bodies like the Olympic Council of Asia are realising that politics and that too misleading politics has no place in sports.
