Lawmakers slammed the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday after it voted this week to “provisionally” allow the Russian Olympic Committee back into competition, even as Moscow’s war in Ukraine rages on.
“This is a disappointing decision from the IOC that rewards Putin despite his slow-rolling of peace negotiations to end his ongoing, brutal war against Ukraine,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told POLITICO in a statement. “International sport should be a means for promoting peace and fair competition, and Russia has yet to demonstrate it is able to meet that standard.”
Russian athletes had been banned from competing for their country at IOC competitions since Vladimir Putin first launched his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mere days after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
That changed Tuesday when the organization announced it had “provisionally lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee,” which had been in place since October 2023, citing “the need to offer equal access to these competitions to all athletes.” The IOC said that the reversal did not represent any change in its view of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which it still condemns. And the IOC has not yet made a decision on whether the Russian flag and national anthem will be allowed at future Olympic events, including the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 2028.
The war — now well into its fifth year — has shown no sign of slowing down. “Nobody in this room can predict” what it will take to force Putin to really consider peace, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said at a press conference Monday.
“The conditions of Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine have not changed; Vladimir Putin is still a thug, and his forces are still committing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on X.
What had changed, he charged, “is the IOC’s willingness to take a principled stance against these atrocities.”
But Washington lawmakers told POLITICO that Russia’s return to Olympic competition sends the wrong message.
“Over the past week, Putin has hammered Kyiv with major drone and missile attacks, killing dozens of innocent Ukrainians as the NATO summit kicked off,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “The free world must not reward Putin’s barbarism with a return to business as usual.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), one of the most ardent Russia hawks in the House Republican caucus, wrote on X that the “Russian people must see that the world rejects Putin’s crimes.”