As attempts intensify to blur, erase and obscure Russia’s violent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the sporting boycott imposed on Russian athletes as a result, Ukrainian athletes’ protests against Russia and sporting institutions are also growing louder. While Russia continues its brutal shelling and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, more and more institutions, organizations, tournaments and administrators are winking at the situation and trying to bring Russian sport back through the back door.
If at the Winter Olympics in Italy in February the Olympic Committee hid behind technical regulations when it disqualified Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych, who asked to compete with a helmet showing images of about 20 war victims, now the whitewashing of Russian crimes through sport is gaining momentum.
The voice that refuses to stay silent
Oleksandra Oliynykova, 25, is the only Ukrainian tennis player among the seven ranked inside the world’s top 100 who still lives in Kyiv. Her father, Denis Oliynyk, is a volunteer soldier in Ukraine’s drone corps and so is her partner. For her, this war is not only national but personal, family and existential. She refuses to stay silent.
Oliynykova, who does not hold back in her criticism of top players on the tour, including world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus, and of senior officials in the circuit she competes in, sharply criticizes those she sees as complicit in Russia’s war effort and propaganda. But she is even harsher toward those who enable it through silence.
“If you compete in a tournament sponsored by a betting company, the women’s tour has a mechanism and regulations that allow it to sanction players,” Oliynykova said after losing in the third round of Roland Garros to Russia’s Diana Shnaider. “I don’t understand why the same mechanism cannot be applied to participation in a tournament partly funded by a company that finances and participates in Russian war crimes.”
5 View gallery
Oleksandra Oliynykova, 25, is the only Ukrainian tennis player among the seven ranked inside the world’s top 100 who still lives in Kyiv
(Photo: Adam Nurkiewicz/Getty Images for Billie Jean King Cup)
Oliynykova referred to the fact that Shnaider and Daniil Medvedev from the men’s tour competed in a tournament in St. Petersburg under the sponsorship of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant. Before their match, she accused Shnaider of collaborating with the regime, published screenshots of Shnaider liking pro-Putin posts by Russian propagandists and said: “Playing in such a tournament is like playing for the Nazis and Gestapo officers or in a tournament funded by the company that built Auschwitz. There is no difference for me. What is crazy is that everyone stays silent about what she did. We must not stay silent about those who glorify Putin and Russia’s actions. Shnaider is a fanatic.”
Shnaider responded: “I did not see or hear what Oliynykova said. I play on tour and spend the whole year on the road and when I get one chance a year to play at home, see my family and friends, I am not going to miss that opportunity.”
5 View gallery
Ukrainian Kostyuk refuses to stand next to Russian Andreeva
(Photo: REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane)
“I know many people want me to be silent but I cannot be silent,” Oliynykova replied. “There is nothing political in what I say, only something humanitarian. I live, train and play in Kyiv. If I do not contribute, if I do not do my part in the national effort for Ukraine’s victory, everything around me will be destroyed. My family will die, all the people I love will die, I will die. I see no other option. I cannot look away and pretend nothing is happening, pretend I do not know there are children dying and people celebrating it in different ways.
“Billie Jean King and the pioneers of women’s tennis did not do it for money and luxury. They wanted us to be role models, to have a voice and to inspire making the world a better place. We are obligated to stand up and speak out against evil.”
The protest on the medal podium
Since the Russian invasion, Russian gymnasts were banned from international competitions. In 2024, while Russia’s killing machine did not stop, the International Gymnastics Federation decided to allow Russian athletes to return as neutral athletes without national symbols such as flags and anthems. In mid-May, the federation decided to allow them to return fully with national symbols.
This is what it looked like on the medal podium
The European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Varna, Bulgaria, in late May, was the first event where Russian gymnasts could fully celebrate their nationality. For Ukrainian athletes, it was one step too far in what they see as a sanitization of Russian crimes and the use of sport to glorify Putin’s actions.
Ukrainian gymnasts Sofia Krainsky and Barbara Chubrová stood on the podium in competitions where gold medals were won by athletes from Russia and Belarus. As the Russian or Belarusian flags were raised and the anthems played, Krainsky and Chubrová put on headphones and covered their eyes with their hands.
“We refuse to look at the state symbols or listen to the anthems of aggressive Russia and its proxies, whose involvement in this unjust war has caused immense destruction and suffering,” the Ukrainian Gymnastics Federation said in a statement. “We must not forget the hundreds of Ukrainian athletes and coaches who were killed in the war and will never compete again. We must not forget the thousands of sports schools that were completely destroyed and the millions of shattered dreams. We are here to ensure these memories are not erased.”
The protest also led to a call from the Ukrainian Gymnastics Federation for a global campaign called “Close your eyes and ears,” urging athletes worldwide to imitate the Ukrainian gymnasts and post videos of themselves doing so, accompanied by audio of air raid sirens “so the world understands the sounds our athletes hear while training every day.”
In UEFA, Ukraine’s football association’s October 2025 request to sanction the clubs Shakhtar Donetsk and Zorya Luhansk has not yet been addressed. These are prominent Ukrainian clubs that were forced to relocate after the 2014 war. In recent years, Russian occupation forces have taken over the clubs’ names and they now play in Russia’s second division, despite having no connection to the original clubs. Two similar clubs have joined them in Russia’s fourth division and a quarter of the 16 teams in that league are now essentially playing under false identities.
The original Shakhtar Donetsk, which this year marks its 90th anniversary, has won the Ukrainian championship 16 times and will once again represent the country in the Champions League while hosting home matches across different stadiums in Europe. The counterfeit club was dropped directly into the fourth division and now leads the table. It plays in Taganrog in Russia but is officially registered in Donetsk. A visit to its website shows it has appropriated the entire history of the original club.
5 View gallery
Shakhtar Donetsk will once again have to host its home games in different stadiums in Europe
(Photo: Reuters)
The story of Luhansk is even more extreme. The club also plays its matches in Russian cities but at least trains in occupied parts of Ukraine. It was promoted to the fourth division last year without any sporting justification. A reality is taking shape in which Russia illegally occupies parts of another country, appropriates internationally recognized Ukrainian sports institutions and uses their names to legitimize occupation and erase Ukrainian sporting identity.
And UEFA, through its silence and inaction, is effectively endorsing this injustice.
The road back for Russia
This is sport after sport yielding and folding under Russian pressure and threats, allowing Russian athletes to return to international competitions under the Russian flag and anthem. Even at the most recent Winter Paralympics in Italy, Russian athletes were allowed to compete with full representation.
5 View gallery
Russia, like other dictatorships, has always used sport as soft power to gain legitimacy and influence on the geopolitical stage
(Photo: Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
Russia, like other dictatorships, has always used sport as soft power to gain legitimacy and influence on the geopolitical stage. The war in Iran and the oil crisis that followed, which deepened global dependence on Russian energy, accelerated this process. Few now dare to challenge Russia or oppose its war in Ukraine. Instead, international sports policy, inaction and silence in the face of Russian reintegration send a clear message: you can commit terrible acts, you do not have to apologize or stop, and the world of sport will still welcome you with open arms.
And still, despite the ugly and immoral whitewashing by sporting institutions of Russian athletes, sports fans must remember Oliynykova’s words and the Ukrainian athletes’ protest in Bulgaria: Russian athletes win medals and prizes, the flag is raised, the anthem is played, but silence is not an option. Silence means erasing all the sports infrastructure that has been destroyed, all the hundreds or thousands of athletes and coaches killed in more than four years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.