Allowing Russia to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, would amount to demonstrating that “terror is somehow acceptable.”
Mr. Zelensky claimed to have brought up the matter with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.
The use of the Olympics by Moscow for propaganda must be prohibited, he continued.
Russian and Belarusian athletes may compete as neutrals at the Olympics, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
However, if Russian and Belarusian athletes are permitted to compete, Ukraine has threatened to boycott Paris 2024.
In his nightly video address, Mr. Zelensky claimed that the IOC’s efforts “to bring Russian athletes back into the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the whole world that terror is somehow acceptable”.
The Olympics and any other sporting event must not be used by Russia as “propaganda for its aggressiveness or its state chauvinism,” he added.
The International Olympic Committee announced that competitors from Russia and Belarus could compete as “neutral athletes,” claiming that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport.”
However, Mr. Zelensky asserts that neutrality in athletics is impossible while athletes from his country are losing their lives on the battlefield.
Additionally, he made comparisons to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, held under Nazi rule.
“There was a major Olympic mistake. The Olympic movement and terrorist states definitely should not cross paths”, he said.
Additionally, the UK government criticized the idea of allowing athletes to participate neutrally, saying it was “world away from the reality of war”.
Mr. Zelensky made his remarks as Russian soldiers began their daylong bombardment of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, which claimed at least three lives.
According to local officials, six others were wounded, two of them when a hospital was hit.
The Kherson regional administration said the region was shelled almost 40 times on Saturday and was pounded continually on Sunday.
Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, Kherson was the only regional capital to fall to Russian forces, although they were forced into an humiliating ing retreat in November.
Russia, according to President Zelensky, has stepped up its attacks in the eastern Donetsk region. He claimed that in order to deal with the “very tough” situation of ongoing attacks, his forces needed additional weapons.
“Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine,” he said.
Author- Roberta Appiah
