KYIV (Reuters) – A senior Ukrainian presidential aide slammed the International Olympic Committee on Saturday for siding with Russia days after it said the Olympic Council of Asia had offered Russian and Belarusian athletes a chance to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
“#IOC proposes to the world promotion of violence, mass murders, destruction. That’s why it insists Russian athletes should participate in contests as real ‘ambassadors of death’,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
“Sport doesn’t exist outside politics – sport promotes it. Thus, the IOC promotes the Russian anti-human policy.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that Ukraine would launch an international campaign to prevent Russian athletes from being allowed to compete in the 2024 Games.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that any attempt to squeeze Moscow out of international sport was “doomed to fail”.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Alison Williams)
