On 7 March, at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics, the Russian flag flew over a winner’s podium for the first time in 12 years. With the Dolomites soaring behind her, gold medallist skier Varvara Voronchikhina briefly wiped away tears to the strains of the Russian national anthem.
That same day, Ukrainian officials announced that a Russian missile had struck a residential building in Kharkiv, killing two children – the youngest victims in a series of attacks that killed a minimum of 10 people and injured another 40.
It was an extraordinary day for Russia’s sporting ambitions but a perfectly ordinary one in its war against Ukraine.
Since 2014, the majority of Russian sportsmen and women have been blocked from representing their country at major sporting competitions – first on the grounds of doping scandals and later because of the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When they have been allowed to compete, it’s generally been as “individual neutral athletes” (AINs) with no national flag.
But that is changing, and President Vladimir Putin is revelling in the moment.
For Russia, the status of its athletes globally is “not the main game in town here, compared to complex bilateral relations with the US, and antagonistic relations with Europe,” James Nixey, acting head of research and analysis at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, told The i Paper.
He said it’s about far more than just sporting competitions. “Sports is a way in for Russia. It’s a return to acceptance.”
Flooding back into the spotlight
In the sporting world, the dam has broken in what had appeared to be an impregnable wall of solidarity with Ukraine.
World bodies governing aquatics, judo, taekwondo and gymnastics have all recently relented, allowing athletes from Russia to compete under their own national flag. And this week, the governing body of ice hockey — Putin’s favourite sport — cancelled Russia’s ban and said it is considering the country’s reintegration.
Vladimir Putin taking part in an ice hockey match in Sochi, Russia, in May 2016 (Photo: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty)Meanwhile, in December, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended relaxing the rules for youth sporting events. At least 15 federations have followed suit. Fifa’s president has also said he wants Russia back on the football field.
Countries that continue to hold the line are coming under considerable pressure. Poland and Estonia were stripped of their ability to host contests in junior weightlifting and fencing, respectively, after they refused to guarantee visas for athletes from Russia and its ally, Belarus.
But most influential of all is the potential reinstatement of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) into the wider Olympic fold.
Although the IOC disavowed involvement with the Russian sporting world at the outset of the invasion of Ukraine, the formal exclusion of the ROC was only triggered in 2023, when Russia falsely claimed jurisdiction over sports organisations in occupied Ukraine.
But the IOC recently said its legal team was reviewing the matter, and that it had held “constructive exchanges” with Russia on it. It declined to provide further details to The i Paper.
Kirsty Coventry, who became president of the IOC last year, told Sky News that she opposes excluding countries on the grounds of conflict.
Soon after she assumed the role in March 2025, the IOC issued a statement emphasising the political neutrality of the Olympic movement, saying it was “concerned” by how “political tensions” and boycotts were depriving “athletes of their right to compete peacefully”.
Trump official Paolo Zampolli has also expressed similar sentiments.
Russia’s sports minister, Mikhail Degtyarev, said last September that its sportsmen and women “are preparing to participate in full composition” at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Paralympic ban overturned
One of the largest concessions to Russia so far was the International Paralympic Committee’s historic reversal of its ban, following a secret ballot of national paralympic committees last September.
Asked which countries had voted for the ballot to remain a secret, the IPC told The i Paper that meeting was also confidential.
Nonetheless, 34 – largely Western – countries stated their opposition when it was announced that Russia was no longer suspended. Even so, the games went ahead, with 12 medals for Russia.
Varvara Voronchikhina attends the national anthem during the medal ceremony for the Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom Standing at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games (Photo: Tom Weller/Getty)“I will treasure this medal,” Voronchikhina told reporters before receiving her gold medal. She added: “I can’t believe that our anthem will be played. I even have goosebumps.”
Two weeks later, she and her fellow Russian Paralympians received another medal – this one from Putin at a special Kremlin ceremony. They had, he said, “shown both Russia and the world what it truly means to fulfil the lofty mission of a Paralympic athlete”.
One notable detail is that some of Russia’s athletes have received their life-changing injuries as a result of Russia’s invasion.
Russia has even launched an award, titled “Hero of our time,” to honour its veterans in Paralympic sports.
Keir Giles, author of “Russia’s War on Everybody: And What it Means for You,” told The i Paper that the participation of Russian veterans was “part of the legitimation” of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
The irony of this is not lost on Yevhenii Korinets. In May 2024, as a paramedic for Ukraine’s 30th Separate Mechanised Brigade, he was among those defending the city of Bakhmut from a Russian onslaught. He lost his left leg from the hip down.
After months of recovery, Korinets was able to join the Ukrainian seated volleyball team, heading to the Paralympics in Paris. There, Russian athletes participated as AINs.
Korinets told The i Paper that Ukrainian athletes are already competing under the strain of war. “We always worry about our relatives,” he said. “This affects the competitive and training process. If your family is in danger, you can’t help thinking about how they are now.”
Yevhenii Korinets during a match against Iran at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games (Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty)Korinets said that even the “neutral athlete” solution is imperfect. “How can they include murderers and those who support war in the competitions?”
AINs are only supposed to be able to compete if they have no connection to the Russian military and show no support for the invasion. But in 2024, an investigation by Global Rights Compliance found that several purportedly “neutral” athletes had flouted these rules ahead of the Paris Olympics, expressing support for Russia’s war online, and some having ties to the military.
“Nobody is taken in by the sham neutrality unless they are very keen to be,” said Giles.
‘Just sports’ — or a political boon for Putin?
The exclusion of its athletes has been seen as a “mark of shame” for Russia – even if it considers itself immune to shame, Nixey said.
The latest moves also point to a broader global relaxation of principles towards Russia, one fuelled in particular by the Trump administration.
This has likely helped provide a path back for Russian sports, Nixey added. He describes a chicken-and-egg loop in which sporting prestige also helps Russia’s standing during political negotiations. The danger is the implication that “all is forgiven – even though Russia hasn’t actually compromised or given an inch in terms of any of its key demands”.
Firefighters at the site of an air attack in Kyiv on 24 January. Russian strikes killed one person and injured 23 others in the capital and the north-eastern city of Kharkiv (Photo: Oleksandr Magula/AFP)In a way, the West is throwing away a small but significant point of pressure for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.
Bringing its athletes back on to the world stage also has distinct advantages for Putin at home, Giles said. “Russia wants to show that it is not isolated – it wants its own people to think that the country has friends and has influence around the world,” he said.
“This is a specific example they can point to and say: ‘Look, we are part of the world community, regardless of what Europe or Nato might say.’”
The row over its athletes has offered Putin a chance to rehash one of his favourite arguments – that the West, guilty of its own unjust wars, harbours a selective outrage towards Russian aggression.
The US war against Iran means “it is harder to hold Russia to a high moral standard by comparison with the United States when the current US administration is engaged in a race to the bottom”, said Giles.
That conflict allows Russia to exploit whataboutism “in precisely the same way as Moscow always has done”, he added.
For Korinets, however, who has had to watch as Russian athletes return to international competitions, the matter is simple. “I cannot compete with someone who wants to kill us,” he said.
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