Moscow, which uses the Olympic Games to present itself as a victim of the West, Ukrainian clips calling for a boycott of Russian athletes: sport is another area of confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, at war for more than two years.
“We are in a geopolitical conflict through sport,” summarizes Lukas Aubin, research director at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), expert in sport and geopolitics.
Excluded from the 2024 Olympic Games as a state, Russia, whose athletes are now banned from the opening ceremony in Paris, is trying to create, with its allies, alternative sporting events.
Summer Friendship Games in September, Winter Friendship Games planned for 2026, BRICS Games (acronym for emerging powers around Brazil, Russia, India, China and the South Africa in particular) in June, Russian initiatives are numerous, with the risk of fragmenting international sport.
“Moscow uses Russian diplomacy to seduce and attract foreign competitors,” underlines academic Sylvain Dufraisse, specialist in Soviet and Russian sport.
He recalls that Russian President Vladimir Putin has always used sport to make it “an instrument of influence and power”, putting himself on stage in a kimono, on horseback, or in an ice hockey outfit.
Lukas Aubin emphasizes that “Russia is a fan of “sport power” […] since the Russian Revolution of 1917. “Sport as an instrument of power has been theorized […] so,” he adds.
It is therefore no surprise that the Olympic Games are being exploited for geopolitical purposes in the ongoing conflict against Ukraine.
“The use of sport by Russia and Ukraine contributes to informational warfare,” observes a French military expert who requested anonymity.
Moscow “is trying to make the Olympics a sounding board to make people believe that it is being attacked by Western countries” and “trying to legitimize the war in Ukraine,” he said.
Wednesday’s accusation of “neo-Nazism” against the International Olympic Committee also echoes the fact that Russia justified its invasion of Ukraine with unfounded accusations of “Nazism” against Ukrainian leaders acting with complicity supposed by Westerners.
Illusory Olympic truce?
Ukraine uses sport just as much as a weapon of influence.
“Since the start of the invasion, she has campaigned for Russia not to be present at the Olympics,” underlines Lukas Aubin. “She has put in place tools to disseminate this influence,” he explains, citing the production of short videos intended for social networks.
A 25-second clip was posted in February 2023 on Twitter (renamed X) by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, in which we saw a Russian athlete throwing a javelin which transformed into a missile before exploding on a Ukrainian building. The video, which used real footage, ended with a call for a boycott of Russian athletes at the Olympics.
Three other videos were posted with the same purpose: to make Russian athletes stakeholders in the war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian athletes also mobilized “the sporting spectacle to reach a wider audience”, underlines Sylvain Dufraisse, with particular reference to the Ukrainian Olga Kharlan, who refused to shake the hand of her Russian opponent during the Fencing World Championships in 2023.
For Ukrainian athletes, “a victory is not just sporting, it is symbolic,” analyzes the university researcher. “It’s a way to keep their nation alive. »
French President Emmanuel Macron recently told Ukrainian channel 1+1 that a ceasefire in Ukraine “will be requested” in Moscow on the occasion of the 2024 Olympic Games, in application of the Olympic truce adopted at the end of November last by the United Nations General Assembly.
It nevertheless seems illusory at this stage, while the invasion of Ukraine took place in the middle of the Olympic truce during the Beijing Winter Games. The Paralympics hadn’t even started.
Russia did the same in 2014, by beginning the annexation of Crimea during the Winter Olympics that it organized on its soil, in Sochi.