CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO: Allowing six Russian athletes to participate in next month\u2019s Milano Cortina Paralympics with their flag and \u200banthem is outrageous and a sign of support for Russia\u2019s propaganda, Ukraine\u2019s sports minister said on Wednesday. Russia and Belarus will have a combined 10 para athletes at next month\u2019s Paralympics following Tuesday\u2019s decision by the International Paralympic Committee. Both countries were banned from Paralympic competitions after Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but regained full membership rights in the IPC after member organizations voted in September 2025 to lift their partial suspensions. Belarus was a key staging area for the invasion. International federations for each sport \u200con the Paralympic \u200cGames program had said they would maintain bans on \u200bathletes \u200cfrom \u2060those countries, \u200bbut \u2060Russia and Belarus won an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in December against the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, earning a handful of spots.<\/p>\n
MINISTER CONDEMNS DECISION<\/p>\n
A limited number of Russian and Belarus athletes are competing as independent neutral athletes without flags or anthems at the ongoing Milano Cortina Winter Games, with the Olympic Committees of the two nations still sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision by the Paralympic organizers to allow \u2060killers and their accomplices to take part in the Paralympic \u200cGames under national flags is disappointing and outrageous,\u201d Ukrainian \u200cminister Matvii Bidnyi said on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiving them a \u200bplatform means giving a voice to war \u200cpropaganda. When the russian (sic) flag is raised on the international stage, it becomes part \u200cof russia\u2019s (sic) propaganda machine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Russia will have two spots in Para alpine skiing, two in Para cross-country skiing and two in Para snowboard while Belarus were awarded four slots in total, all in cross-country skiing \u2014 one male and three female.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe flags of russia and belarus have no \u200cplace at international sporting events that stand for fairness, integrity, and respect. These are the flags of regimes that have turned \u2060sport into a \u2060tool of war, lies, and contempt,\u201d Bidnyi said.<\/p>\n
HERASKEVYCH SPEAKS OUT<\/p>\n
His comments come hours after Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from the Winter Olympics over a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war, criticized Games organizers\u2019 decision to have a Russian carry a sign ahead of the Ukraine delegation at the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
The volunteer, a Russian living in Milan, had wanted to carry the sign because she condemned Russia\u2019s invasion and wanted to support Ukraine, according to local media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like some campaign against the Ukrainian nation, and it feels like that. They try to make provocations at any point,\u201d Heraskevych told Reuters from Kyiv.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to attack anyone \u200bpersonally, but overall this situation with the \u200bParalympic Committee, with the IOC, with the disqualification and with Russian flags, feels like the IOC is doing some campaign against the Ukrainian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO: Allowing six Russian athletes to participate in next month\u2019s Milano Cortina Paralympics with their flag and \u200banthem is outrageous and a sign of support for Russia\u2019s propaganda, Ukraine\u2019s sports minister said on Wednesday. Russia and Belarus will have a combined 10 para athletes at next month\u2019s Paralympics following Tuesday\u2019s decision by the International …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93896,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93880\/revisions\/93896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}