Ukraine rules out boycott of 2026 Paralympics despite Russian and Belarusian athletes being allowed to compete

Valerii Sushkevych, President of the National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, has stated that Ukraine is not considering a boycott of the Paralympic Games despite the decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their national flags.

Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Hromadske

Quote from Sushkevych: "I am very, very angry and outraged by the decision to allow six Russian athletes to compete under their own flag. This is terrible, it's an escalation of leniency towards representatives of a murderous state! This is not fair play."

Details: Despite the decision, Ukraine is not considering boycotting the Paralympics.

"If we didn't go, we would be enabling Putin to win over Ukrainian Paralympians, over Ukraine, by excluding us from the Games. That is not going to happen!" Sushkevych said.

Background:

• The Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympic Games will take place from 6 to 15 March. Earlier, Ukraine's Minister of Youth and Sports, Matvii Bidnyi, said he was disappointed by the decision to allow 10 athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete in the 2026 Paralympics and called on other officials to boycott official events at the Games.
• In September 2024, the International Paralympic Committee fully reinstated the Russian Paralympic Committee. Russian athletes have been allocated six places and Belarusian athletes four.
• This will be the first time the Russian flag has been raised at the Paralympic Games since the 2014 Games in Sochi. In 2018 and 2022, Russians did not compete under their own flag due to Russia's state-sponsored doping programme and full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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