Ahead of a key meeting about curling, a top Ukrainian minister tells POLITICO he is “deeply concerned” about the trend toward readmission.
An ally of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin is pushing to reintegrate Russia into another iconic Olympic sport, sparking outrage among senior Ukrainian officials as Moscow’s full-scale invasion grinds on.
Dmitry Svishchev, president of the Russian Curling Federation and a member of the Russian parliament, is using legal threats and public pressure in Moscow’s bid for international readmission onto the ice rink.
Most global sports ostracized Russia after Putin launched his all-out attack on Ukraine in February 2022, though that hard-line stance has eroded in recent months, from judo to aquatics.
Moscow’s reintegration gathered momentum earlier this year when the Paralympics permitted Russian athletes to compete with their flag and anthem, underscoring what Ukrainian officials fear is a growing desire to restore other sporting ties with Russia despite its continued aggression.
“I am deeply concerned because what we are seeing is not a series of isolated decisions. It looks like a broader shift toward normalizing Russia’s return to international sport,” Matvii Bidnyi, Ukraine’s minister of youth and sports, told POLITICO.
“If a state that continues its war of aggression can gradually return to international sport without any real change in conduct, then the message is clear: Serious violations of international law do not necessarily lead to lasting consequences. That is dangerous not only for Ukraine but for the credibility of the entire international system,” Bidnyi added.
Bidnyi’s intervention comes ahead of a key meeting in Geneva on Thursday, where the issue of Russia’s participation in international curling competitions is set to be discussed, two weeks after World Aquatics allowed Russian athletes to compete under their flag again.
Back in the influence game
Across sports from fencing to chess, the Kremlin has — for years — used sports as a soft-power tool to project strength and legitimacy on the global stage.
From hosting major events like the 2014 Winter Olympics or the 2018 FIFA World Cup to embedding athletes in military forces and security structures, Moscow has blurred the lines between competition and propaganda.
Svishchev, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K., ramped up the curling effort in November last year, saying that his federation was preparing to submit a lawsuit to the world’s top sports court, CAS, to force Russia’s return to international curling.
In December, Svishchev said the federation had written to global governing body World Curling, retained lawyers and demanded junior athletes be readmitted to competitions, along with their flag and anthem.
World Curling confirmed in late January the return of junior athletes from Russia and Belarus to competitions, but left a further review on adults until the April meetings. An emboldened Svishchev in February said that World Curling would discuss adult reintegration at Russia’s “request.”
The Russian Curling Federation’s activities at home complicate its international claim to be a neutral sporting body. On its own website, the federation promotes curling events tied to Russia’s “special military operation” (the Kremlin’s euphemism for its war in Ukraine), including festivals, tournaments and training sessions for veterans and their families across multiple regions.
Representatives for World Curling did not respond to a request for comment about whether Russia’s return risked legitimizing the Kremlin’s aggression. The Russian Curling Federation also did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Unfair conditions’
The trend toward Russian participation in international curling competitions has dismayed sporting officials in Ukraine.
Speaking to POLITICO from his office in Kyiv, Oleksiy Perevezentsev, president of the Ukrainian Curling Federation, said that, “what also disturbs is that actually nothing has changed. We just have absolutely unfair conditions for Ukrainian athletes,” while pointing to the ongoing destruction of his country’s sports facilities at Putin’s hands.
“We have more than 500 sites of sports infrastructure, which are partially or totally destroyed,” Perevezentsev said, moments after an air raid siren delayed the start of the interview. “The latest was last week in Sumy. It’s a quite large Olympic infrastructural center which was totally destroyed by Russian missiles and drones.”
He also accused World Curling of transgressing the International Olympic Committee’s current guidance for Russian athletes. “Also, they actually violated good governance in the sense that the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee was just to bring back youth, not juniors — another category, which actually could be conscripted into the Russian army. It’s a category from 18 to 21,” he pointed out.
In Geneva, Perevezentsev hopes that a coalition of allied European countries will push to postpone the return of adult Russian athletes, as any reintegration risks appeasing Putin and the Kremlin, he said.
“In the current context, normalization risks becoming legitimization. And once that line is crossed, rebuilding trust in international sport will be extremely difficult,” Bidnyi, the sports minister, added.