When Niina Petrykina won a historic gold medal at the European Figure Skating Championships at Tondiraba Ice Hall in late January, social media lit up. In addition to the remarkable achievement—after all, the last time an Estonian athlete won gold at a senior-level Olympic sport European Championship on home soil was in 1938—many were also delighted by the 20-year-old athlete’s fluent Estonian in interviews. However, amid the congratulations came a wave of negative comments, mostly in Russian. The main message was simple: Petrõkina’s victory wasn’t “real,” because Russian figure skaters hadn’t taken part in the championships.
Screenshot: Facebook group Таллиннцы
It’s true that Russian and Belarusian athletes are absent from many international competitions, and the European Figure Skating Championships held in Tallinn were no exception. However, this in no way diminishes the achievements of athletes from other countries. Why are Russian and Belarusian athletes internationally isolated in the first place?
There are two main reasons: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which is supported by Belarus, and extensive state-sponsored and state-run doping programs that blatantly disregard the principles of fair play.
The Militarization of Russian Sports and State-Sponsored Doping
Doping has been a part of sports for decades, and even those who don’t closely follow sports are likely to remember doping scandals involving cyclist Lance Armstrong or footballer Diego Maradona. However, those cases involved individual athletes and their teams making specific decisions—not a state-run system designed to support and cover up doping, as was the case in Russia.
This extensive system was exposed in 2015 by Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia’s anti-doping agency. Now living under witness protection in the United States, Rodchenkov revealed to the world how the Russian doping system was built and coordinated by the FSB. The Oscar-winning documentary Icarus offers a compelling summary of the story.
In Russia, sport is part of the state’s image-building strategy—a practice that dates back to the Soviet era. Researchers who have studied the topic point out that sport is a means by which a totalitarian state asserts control over people’s bodies:
“Sport’s primary role is tied to a classic biopolitical ambition toward the health, productivity, and unity of the nation—creating a so-called collective body through mass events, rituals, shared emotions, and the subordination of individual bodies to collective goals. The state treats the human body as a resource that can be nationalized or, at the very least, used for the benefit of the nation.”
(Andrey Makarychev and Sergei Medvedev, Biopower in Putin’s Russia: From Taking Care to Taking Lives, CEU Press, 2024, pp. 71–72).
Even more important, according to the authors, is the role of sport as a substitute for warfare:
“In its second role, biopower enters the realm of geopolitics, turning sport into a stage for global political competition and interpreting it as a proxy war between nations. Sport becomes a late-modern battlefield where the bodies of soldiers are replaced by the bodies of athletes.”
A totalitarian state builds structures focused on sporting achievements rather than simply promoting public sports or healthy lifestyles. All resources are directed toward a select few, with little investment in building accessible sports facilities or promoting public health.
The average Russian follows, at best, a few individual athletes through televised broadcasts. But what interests them most is their country’s position in the Olympic medal table—because only then can they feel a sense of pride in their nation.
The militarization of sport is also reflected in funding structures. During the Soviet era, there were supposedly no professional athletes, even though training was their full-time job. For many, their official employer was either the police or the military—represented by clubs like Dynamo and CSKA (Central Sports Club of the Army).
Many athletes still wear uniforms today. Cross-country skier and three-time Olympic champion Alexander Bolshunov is a captain in the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya), while two-time Olympic champion and 28-time world record holder in pole vaulting Yelena Isinbayeva holds the rank of major in the Russian army.
Major Sporting Events as Smoke Screens and Soft Power
One distinct way sport is used for propaganda is through hosting major international championships. On several occasions, the timing of these events has been used to divert attention from acts of aggression by the state.
The Sochi Winter Olympics were unprecedented not only because of widespread doping among Russian athletes but also due to their staggering cost. Held in 2014, the games cost $51 billion and, through corruption schemes, enriched Putin’s inner circle (for comparison: last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris cost $8.2 billion). Immediately after the spectacular Winter Games concluded, Russia began its annexation of Crimea.
A similar pattern had already played out in the summer of 2008, when Russia waited until the end of the Beijing Olympics—an event of great importance to its ally China—before launching an attack on Georgia.
At times, Russia has managed to use major sporting events to create an illusion of normalcy and “Europeanness.” The 2018 FIFA World Cup, held in Russia, brought millions of foreign football fans to the country, and major media outlets fell into the trap of Russian propaganda, praising how well Europeans were received there.
A Grim Situation and Future Outlook
At the Paris Olympics, only 17 Belarusian and 15 Russian athletes competed under a neutral flag. Many Russian athletes who had qualified chose not to participate, considering such treatment inappropriate. This clearly illustrates that for many, the motivation to compete lies in national pride rather than purely athletic achievement.
Few elite athletes have condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine—most remain silent. However, another trend has been gaining momentum in recent years: top athletes are changing their citizenship. For example, elite tennis player Daria Kasatkina recently announced that she will now compete under the Australian flag.
Screenshot: Gazeta.ru
Isolation has also led to absurd situations and records. For example, the Russian national football team proudly boasts that they haven’t conceded a single goal in eight consecutive matches—774 minutes of play. But this is only because they’ve been playing against clearly weaker teams and countries that are geopolitically dependent on Russia. Their recent opponents include Belarus, Cuba, Zambia, Serbia, Grenada, Vietnam, Brunei, and Syria…
When will Russian athletes return to regular international competitions? That depends on the country’s behavior. The new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, has indicated that discussions on the matter are possible. That said, much will also depend on the decisions of individual sports federations.
Russian spokespeople have already expressed enthusiasm over Coventry’s appointment, noting that she comes from “pro-Russian” Zimbabwe. The media also highlights that Coventry competed internationally even when her home country was under Western sanctions.
Last year, the president of the Russian Ski Federation, Yelena Välbe, went so far as to say that bombing central London would have been enough to get Russians back into international competitions. That statement even crossed the line for Russian standards and was condemned by members of the State Duma.
After a phone call with President Donald Trump in mid-March, Vladimir Putin suggested that star players from the two countries’ hockey leagues could play exhibition matches against each other. In essence, this would be a return to the Cold War-era model—although Russia’s doping and propaganda machinery has since evolved significantly and become even more tightly integrated.
Screenshot: Sportbox.ru
Hockey is a source of national pride in Russia, and for Putin, such a match would be a major propaganda victory—demonstrating to the domestic audience his ability to bring Russian athletes out of international isolation.
On the global stage, a high-level USA–Russia hockey showdown would put considerable pressure on other sports federations that have kept Russian athletes off the field since 2022, potentially pushing them to follow Trump’s lead.
