Understanding the issue
Sportokratura
sport + kratos (strength, power in Ancient Greek) + nomenklatura
A concept coined by Lukas Aubin (IRIS), "sportokratura" refers to the system established by Putin: a politico-economic-sporting machine where elite sport is entirely at the service of ideology and war propaganda. Oligarchs, federations, military athletes, and the paramilitary youth movement Yunarmia (1.3 million members) constitute its cogs.
Athletes are being turned into propagandists
The Russian Federation's integration of sport and regime is complete.
The disregard for the Olympic Charter is repeated and blatant.
The Russian army officially has two missions: to win the war in Ukraine, and to win Olympic medals.
Lukas Aubin, The Sportocracy under Vladimir Putin, Bréal, 2022
Tatiana Kudashova, triple championne d'Europe de taekwondo et médaillée mondiale, pose aux côtés de Sergueï Choïgou, ministre de la Défense russe, après avoir reçu une médaille du ministère de la Défense. Sur ses réseaux sociaux : des posts pro-guerre, des photos avec Choïgou, des prix acceptés d'un gouverneur sanctionné par Washington et Londres pour son soutien à l'invasion de l'Ukraine. Le CIO exige la neutralité des athlètes russes. Tatiana Kudashova illustre pourquoi cette neutralité est une fiction.
Ukrainian athletes: what lies behind normalisation and the return of Russians and Belarusians to international competitions
While international sport normalizes the Russian return, Ukrainian athletes are training in conditions that can hardly be described as normal:
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Sports facilities destroyed or rendered inaccessible by bombs
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Training sessions interrupted by daily air raid alerts
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Athletes and soldiers killed at the front
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Young athletes killed by bombs
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Relatives killed at the front, imprisoned in Russia
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Vladislav Heraskevych disqualified from the Winter Olympics for a helmet paying tribute to his deceased teammates
What our CSO specifically pleads for
Why Russian athletes should not participate in the Olympic Games: four arguments
Russia has repeatedly violated the Olympic Charter.
State-sponsored doping, described as a "shocking and unprecedented attack" by the IOC itself, violations of the Olympic truces in 2008, 2014, and 2022, and the destruction of more than 363 sports facilities in Ukraine: Russia fails to meet the basic conditions set forth in the Charter for participation in the Games. No other nation has accumulated such blatant and unpunished contempt for the founding principles of Olympism.
The neutrality imposed on Russian athletes is inapplicable.
The experience of the Tokyo and Beijing Games has demonstrated this: tracksuits in national colors, an iconic anthem, a Cyrillic acronym… the supposed neutrality is nothing but a facade. The 2023 Doha Judo World Championships confirmed it: Russian military personnel competed in direct violation of the IOC criteria, which their federation had nevertheless claimed to respect. Participation under a neutral flag in Paris would be nothing but a charade, from which only Russian propaganda would emerge victorious.
More than 80% of the Russian medalists in Tokyo actively support the war.
Our investigation, reported by Le Monde and L'Équipe, establishes that 80.2% of the 91 Russian medalists are military or police personnel, and/or have publicly supported the invasion of Ukraine—many of them on stage at the Luzhniki Stadium in March 2022, displaying military "Z" symbols alongside Vladimir Putin. Demanding that Ukrainian athletes compete against representatives of the army that is bombing their country is morally unacceptable. Games with Russians but without Ukrainians would be inferior Games—both in terms of sporting merit and moral integrity.
Russian sport is a state system serving the regime.
What researcher Lukas Aubin calls the "sportokratura"—the complete intertwining of sport, the military, oligarchs, Putin's party, and the Orthodox Church—makes Russian sport an instrument of propaganda and warfare, unparalleled in any other nation. Defense Minister Shoigu himself praised the Olympic medalists for "their contribution to enhancing the prestige of the Russian army," promising them "the army's full support" for Paris. Excluding Russian athletes from international competitions means refusing to provide an international platform to a regime whose president is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Further Reading
A website dedicated to Ukrainian athletes who have fallen in battle and young Ukrainian sportspeople who have been killed by bombs
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