Since Soviet times, winning international competitions has always been crucial for the prestige of the state. And while the USSR didn't participate in the Venice Biennale, deemed too modernist, it boasted of its cultural achievements in other fields, such as ballet and classical music. Putin's imperialist Russia is keen to reclaim the Soviet aura and is infiltrating not only the Venice Biennale but also the Olympics and other major tournaments. It is our responsibility to remain vigilant to ensure that Russia is excluded from these areas until it ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine.

On April 30, 1895, the royal couple of Savoy, Umberto I and Margaret, inaugurated the "International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice," decided upon in 1893 by the city council. This was the very first edition of what would become the Venice Biennale, considered today as one of the world's leading art events.

Less than a year later, from April 6 to 15, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens. Perhaps even more so than the Biennale for art, the Olympics have become the benchmark sporting event, attracting approximately 5 billion viewers worldwide (representing 80% of the global television audience) for the 2024 French edition.

It is therefore hardly surprising that the Venice Biennale is sometimes described as "Olympic Games of the artistic world" .

The worlds of sport and art share yet another characteristic: their instrumentalization by authoritarian regimes, which intend to use them to bolster their prestige and international influence. Certainly, most states benefit from the recognition their world-renowned artists and athletes bring them . But only a handful of states unscrupulously use them as propagandists, often directly serving aggressive policies, or, to use an English term, as razor-sharp weapons of soft power —so sharp, in fact, that they are also referred to as " sharp power ." In this area, Russia clearly stands out as the undisputed champion. Before examining why, let's briefly look at how Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, severely disrupted both the Venice Biennale (which was scheduled to open two months later) and the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which were then being held in China.

The bombshell of February 24, 2022

On February 28, the two artists who were to represent Russia at the Venice Biennale, Alexandra Soukhareva and Kirill Savchenkov, and their curator, the Lithuanian Raimundas Malašauskas, announced their withdrawal from the event in protest against the invasion. The Russian pavilion therefore remained closed during the 2022 Biennale .

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that international sports federations and organizers of sporting events not invite or authorize the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions. This strong reaction was due in particular to Russia's deliberate violation of the Olympic truce[3] which ran from January 28 to March 20, 2022, but also to the long history of systematic anti-doping rule violations by Russian athletes, revealed in 2016. This history required them to compete under a neutral flag until… 2022 inclusive.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) will go even further, as it did in 2016 during the doping scandal (excluding Russia from the Rio Summer Paralympic Games, even though the IOC had allowed it to participate in the Olympics that same summer, under certain conditions). On March 3, on the very eve of the opening of the Winter Paralympic Games, it decided to exclude Russian and Belarusian para-athletes from the competition, most of whom were already there!

We will see that these initially very firm measures will gradually weaken over time, under pressure from several actors. Before examining the Olympic case, undoubtedly the most emblematic, what became of the Venice Biennale, once the emotion of February 2022 had subsided?

The Russian pavilion reopened in 2024, but without any Russian artists, as the country had not received an invitation to participate—a decision the organizing committee has not explained. Bolivian artists took over the space, at Russia's invitation… just a few months, it seems, “after the signing of an agreement between the Russian state-owned company Uranium One and the Bolivian authorities for the exploitation of lithium in the Pastos Grandes salt flats .” This would be a striking illustration of the geopolitical stakes of the Biennale! Its visitors, in any case, were able to admire the interior of the Russian pavilion, which effectively put it back on the symbolic map of the art world. A map that matters a great deal to Putin, who in March 2022 did not hesitate to compare the removal of Russian artists from Western exhibitions to the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s!

This year, 2026, was supposed to mark Russia's full return to Venice, officially announced on March 4th by the Biennale organizers. The Kremlin was clearly pulling the strings this time, since the curator of the Russian pavilion, Anastasia Karneeva, is the daughter of a former FSB general and senior executive at Rostec (the state-owned defense conglomerate). She founded the company Smart Art with Ekaterina Vinokourova, herself the daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. This did not prevent Mikhail Shvydkoy, Vladimir Putin's special representative for international cultural cooperation, from seeing the Russian presence at the Biennale as proof that “Culture prevails over politics” …

Ukraine immediately protested, followed by numerous other countries – including Italy and France – and by the European Union, which threatened to withdraw a €2 million grant awarded to the Biennale, while opinion pieces denounced Russia's return to favor. It mattered little to the Biennale's president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, a former journalist and neo-fascist activist with the Italian Social Movement, that Russia was looting archaeological sites in Crimea or the museums of Mariupol, Kherson, and Melitopol, whose works are now listed as Russian in the catalogue of museums of the Russian Federation!

To everyone's surprise, the Biennale jury decided that Russian and Israeli artists, while not excluded, would not be eligible for prizes. Why? Because the leaders of their countries were subject to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court—a curious equivalence between artists often critical of their governments and others who were their propagandists. In fact, this apparent "compromise," trying to please everyone while also including a bitter pill, naturally satisfied no one. The jury therefore resigned on April 30. At least two conclusions can be drawn from this, admittedly not entirely new: 1) Culture is definitely not above politics. and 2) it is difficult to define and enforce consistent red lines 4 .

Sport, a historical arena for maneuver, is favorable to the rehabilitation of Russia.

The world of international sport confirms and amplifies these conclusions, especially given its large number of more or less interconnected actors , which opens up a wider field for Kremlin influence maneuvers—a field already heavily exploited during the Soviet era. I will focus here on the IOC and the IPC, with references to the international federations of certain sports when they illustrate important aspects of Russian soft (or sharp ) power .

Even more so than for art, the mantra “Sport is above politics” is at the heart of the discourse of sports bodies. 6 and in clear contradiction with reality, in all countries but particularly in authoritarian or totalitarian countries (the 1936 Berlin Olympics remain to this day the unparalleled example of sport serving the politics and propaganda of a state ) . It was therefore logical to expect these bodies to revisit, in a scattered order depending on the degree of Russian influence within each of them, the decisions made in the heat of the moment immediately following the large-scale invasion of February 2022 .

Most international sports federations initially appeared to follow the IOC's strict (but non-binding) recommendations of February 2022. It modified them on March 28, 2023, after months of intense consultations, including with "UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteurs in the field of cultural rights and on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."

In summary, the aim is to avoid discrimination based solely on passport ownership. Russians and Belarusians can therefore participate, but as neutral individual athletes (no anthem, no flag). The IOC is thus reaffirming the principle of sanctions imposed in previous years solely on Russia, due to its widespread program of anti-doping rule fraud . However, those who "actively support the war" or "are under contract with the Russian or Belarusian armed forces or with national security agencies" should be excluded from participation . Finally, " the participation of teams whose athletes hold Russian or Belarusian passports cannot be considered . "

These rules are widely adopted, at least in theory, in the sporting world, and the IOC is applying them for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, and then for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina. As a result, there are 16 Russian "neutral individual athletes" at the Summer Olympics in France (compared to 333 in Tokyo in 2021) and 13 at the Winter Olympics in Italy (compared to more than 210 in Beijing in 2022).

Only one international federation, the fencing federation, is not waiting for the IOC's new recommendations at the end of March 2023. It took the initiative on March 10th to reinstate Russian and Belarusian athletes , both individually and in teams. Officially, this was to allow them to participate, starting April 3rd, in the qualifying events for the 2024 Paris Olympics, and "subject to any future recommendations/decisions from the IOC ." The president of the Russian federation, Ilgar Mamedov, is delighted: "The first step has been taken. I am grateful to my colleagues in the foreign federations." But is it a coincidence that the president of the international fencing federation was for a long time Alisher Usmanov, an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, who made his fortune in metallurgy?

Here we are highlighting a completely extraordinary dimension of Russian sport, which researcher Lukas Aubin has named sportokratura 9 A unique political, economic, and sporting system, meticulously constructed by Vladimir Putin since he came to power. He carefully cultivates his image as a well-rounded athlete (judo, equestrian, ice hockey) and has built a network of his sporting colleagues, whom he appoints to key positions within his party, United Russia, as well as at the head of Russian and international sports federations. All athletes are effectively transformed into propagandists for his regime and its war of invasion in Ukraine. A prime example is Nikita Nagorny, the multi-Olympic medalist gymnast and lieutenant in the National Guard (Rosgvardia), appointed head of the Yunarmia youth movement.

Judo is also an exemplary example of this politico-economic-sporting system of influence. Here's what Le Monde says : "In office since 2007, the president of the International Judo Federation (IJF) is the Romanian Marius Vizer, [...] close to Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, and especially to Vladimir Putin, 'the perfect ambassador for [this] sport,' to whom he awarded an eighth dan in 2012, one of the highest ranks in judo." It's worth noting that Putin was even honorary president of the IJF until 2022! As for the federation's sponsors, they are "primarily opaque Swiss private banks, Hungarian companies, and energy companies active in the natural gas markets [...] For example, MET Group, based in Switzerland, facilitated the reinjection of Russian gas into Transnistria in February, a pro-Russian separatist region located between Moldova and Ukraine."

It is therefore no surprise that the IJF was the first international federation to lift all restrictions on Russian athletes on November 27 (Belarusians had been reinstated with their anthem and flag as early as June). According to Le Monde , "this is a turning point in the geopolitics of international sport […] which constitutes an undeniable victory for Moscow, and a stinging rebuke for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ," whose strict conditions for the Paris Olympics had been deemed "humiliating" by the Russian federation, which had withdrawn from the Games.

It's also worth noting that the IJF hasn't previously implemented the IOC's recommendations with much zeal: at the Doha World Championships in May 2023, for example, at least three Russian judokas had previously won medals in military championships . It's true that the checks required of the federations are costly and complex : "Everyone manages as best they can. Some federations intend to carry out their checks themselves, but many use private companies. This costs between $600 and $800 (approximately €535 to €710) per athlete."

The diversity of the sporting world facilitates Russia's insidious undermining efforts.

In short, the vast diversity of the sporting world offers Russia a prime opportunity to gradually re-establish itself among respectable nations. Through a few influential international federations acting as scouts, it is attempting to undermine the consensus that prevailed immediately after its large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Once this movement is launched, it can snowball. No one wants to be the last to hold a position that has become too vulnerable.

In this regard, one must wonder how long the international athletics federation, the sport that awards the most medals at the Olympics, can maintain its intransigence. It continues to refuse any Russian or Belarusian participation , even under a neutral flag, and even after the IOC's latest recommendation on May 8th to lift all sanctions against Belarus . Its president, Sebastian Coe, emphasized that "following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the World Athletics sanctions put in place in March 2022, excluding Belarusian and Russian athletes, officials, and support staff from competitions, remain in effect ." As long as there is no "tangible progress towards peace negotiations […] the [World Athletics] Council remains united in supporting the decision it took in March 2022 and reviewed in 2023 and 2025. "

Without going into so much detail, we can identify two other tools quite specific to sport, which Russia can take advantage of: the Paralympic movement and young people.

The IPC was the first international sporting body to completely exclude Russians and Belarusians, on March 3, 2022, but in September 2023 it adopted a position in line with the recommendations made by the IOC to international federations (participation under a neutral flag). This allows for Russian and Belarusian participation in the Paris Paralympic Games ten months later, while the IOC officially continues its consultations regarding the Olympics. For Patrick Clastres, a historian specializing in Olympism quoted by Le Monde , the IPC offers "a full-scale test that allows the IOC to see how international reactions to this decision are manifesting ." Two months after its Paralympic counterpart, the IOC – an organization that is in principle independent – He will follow suit for the Olympics .

On September 26, 2025, the CIP is also the first body to lift all restrictions Regarding Russians and Belarusians, 11. Unlike their able-bodied counterparts, they will therefore be able to participate with anthems and flags at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games in March 2026. The IOC is waiting eight months, until May 7, 2026 , to "end all its recommendations restricting the participation of Belarusian athletes in international competitions, and leaves the case of Russian athletes open ." Perhaps it was burned by the incident at the Winter Olympics a few months earlier involving the Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych , disqualified for wearing a helmet honoring several teammates killed during the war…

In any case, we see what appears to be an alternating dynamic between the IPC and the IOC, each relying on the other to gradually restore respectability to Russia and Belarus. It should also be noted that para-athletes, regardless of their nationality, generally elicit more sympathy than able-bodied athletes. Excluding them from competitions seems an especially harsh punishment given the widespread exclusion and discrimination they face. In their case, the only reason for sanction that would resonate with the general public in the current context would likely be if their disability resulted from their participation in the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Russia does not appear to have attempted to field such veterans in major international competitions so far. We can only hope for heightened vigilance on this point from the Paralympic authorities.

Opening the dike with the junior competitions

Another dimension that I will also only touch upon is that of junior competitions. Here too, the general public spontaneously feels more sympathy for younger athletes. The innocence of youth is highlighted, then insidiously becomes a banner that applies to all athletes: "athletes, and in particular young athletes , should not be held responsible for the actions of their government ," stated the IOC when lifting sanctions on Russian and Belarusian junior athletes on December 11th.

In this respect, it is The example of football is perhaps the most striking. In September 2023, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) proposed reauthorizing the participation of Russian men's and women's under-17 teams ( "without the flag, anthem, and official kits" and "outside of Russian territory" ). The argument put forward was: "Children should not be punished for acts for which adults are solely responsible." UEFA ultimately backed down in the face of the outcry, with Ukraine and numerous other countries (England, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, and Romania) announcing their withdrawal from tournaments in which Russian teams participated.

However, once the dam is broken for juniors, it is difficult to maintain for others, as demonstrated by World Aquatics (the international swimming federation), which waited barely more than two months between The lifting of sanctions for juniors and seniors will therefore increase the pressure on the IOC, caught in a vice between the IPC and the international federations. But should we really speak of pressure, given that the IOC participated in the movement by taking the initiative to lift the sanctions against junior athletes? Aren't we witnessing instead a strange, if not orchestrated, charade by the IOC itself, to smoothly make the return to international sport of the country responsible for the most cynical, longest, and deadliest aggression in Europe—and perhaps soon in the world—since the Second World War more palatable?

Let's conclude by noting the contrast between the failure of Putin's influence campaign at the Venice Biennale and his admittedly creeping success in the sporting arena. This is undoubtedly linked to the comparative economic stakes of each world. Brandishing the threat of cutting a two-million-euro subsidy to the Biennale simply pales in comparison to the billions handled by the IOC, or the sums invested (and earned) by the media to broadcast major sporting events. But that's another story…

André Klarsfeld

André Klarsfeld is a French biologist and neuroscientist, former researcher at the CNRS and professor of physiology at ESPCI Paris – PSL University. A specialist in biological clocks and brain aging, he is the author of several popular science books. He is committed to supporting Ukraine, serving as secretary of the association "For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours!" He has also been involved with the Seeds of Peace Foundation for many years.

Notes

1. We could also add scientists, mainly through Nobel Prize winners, whose distribution by country is intensely scrutinized each year, but it seems to me that the issues are quite different – without claiming that science is totally above politics.

2. Kyrill Savchenkov went into exile in Paris, Alexandra Sukhareva seems to have remained in Russia, but hasn't exhibited there since 2022. To my knowledge, no Russian athlete has taken the initiative to withdraw from the Beijing Games to protest the invasion of Ukraine. The main reason for this will become clear later.

3. Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 76/13 December 2, 2021. It should be noted, however, that the most drastic measure, excluding all Russian and Belarusian athletes, is justified only to "protect the integrity of global sporting competitions and the safety of all participants ." Athletes should not be "punished for decisions made by their government if they do not actively participate in them . "

   The IPC also highlighted the safety of participants, as well as the risks of a boycott by other delegations, adding: "To the para-athletes of the countries concerned: we are sorry to see you affected by the decisions taken by your governments last week, in violation of the concept of the Olympic Truce. You are victims of your governments' actions."

4. One example with dramatic consequences is Barack Obama's retreat in the face of the Syrian regime crossing a red line when it used chemical weapons against its people.

5. Lukas Aubin and Jean-Baptiste Guégan, Geopolitics of Sport , La Découverte, 2024.

6. For example the Olympic Charter emphasizes the political neutrality of the Olympic movement and the autonomy of sport, and prohibits any "kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda […] in an Olympic venue, site or other location" .

7. See for example Jean-Marie Brohm, The Berlin Olympic Games 1936 – Games of the Swastika , QS? editions, 2024.

8. And provided, of course, that they "meet all applicable anti-doping requirements ." That seems obvious... except in Russia!

9. Lukas Aubin, *The Sportocracy under Vladimir Putin: A Geopolitics of Russian Sport *, Bréal, 2021. This extreme politicization of Russian sport is reminiscent of the Soviet era, as described by historian Sylvain Dufraisse . Drawing on their work, among other sources, the association * For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours! * published in 2023 A detailed argument against the participation of Russian athletes in the Paris Olympics. It demonstrated, in particular, that more than 80% of the Russian medalists at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 were linked to the armed or security forces , and/or supported Russian aggression in Ukraine!

10. The French reaction was very strong, according to Le Monde : “The French Paralympic and Sports Committee (CPSF), in line with its European counterparts, denounced, in a press release, ‘the pressure exerted, throughout the world, on certain national Paralympic committees.’ The risk of manipulation, even under a neutral banner, remains uncontrollable, while the Paralympic Games must remain a space of peace and neutrality,” the CPSF argues. […] Marie-Amélie Le Fur, president of the CPSF (French Paralympic and Sports Committee), told Le Monde of her “stupefaction ” and “anger.” “I feel that the Paralympic movement is being attacked at its heart with this decision. […] We have been presented with evidence demonstrating that for the past year there has been pressure, backroom deals, and political manipulation of sport by Russia,” condemned the former Paralympic champion, who reported “very heated” debates during the general assembly.

11. By 91 votes to 77 and 8 abstentions for Russia, and 103 votes to 63 and 10 abstentions for Belarus.

12. Note that the definition of "junior" varies depending on the sport. It generally refers to the 17-20 age group.