Russian athletes must take a public stance against the war in Ukraine if they want to be allowed to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Kyiv mayor and former world boxing champion Vitaliy Klitsyko said Monday, News .ro reported.

“Russian and Belarusian athletes cannot participate in the Olympic Games in Paris if they do not say “No” to the war. If they say it publicly, they can, but they are afraid,” he told AFP in an interview.

“I tell every Russian athlete: tell your government, the Russian president, to stop this senseless war,” added the mayor of the capital of Ukraine, assessing that one cannot be “neutral when people, women, and children are dying.” . “You are either for or against the war,” he said.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has repeatedly called for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be barred from the 2024 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposed a road map in late January that supports their return under a neutral flag.

In a letter dated January 31, IOC President Thomas Bach also condemned Ukrainian threats of a boycott in the event of Russia’s participation, assuring that this “pressure” is perceived by many national Olympic committees as “extremely unfortunate.”

“I would be very happy to invite Thomas Bach to Ukraine so that he could see with his own eyes the destroyed cities, the dead, the wounded,” Vitaliy Klitschko responded: “He doesn’t understand if he is playing with Russia. , I have no explanation.”

A group of 35 countries, including the US, Germany and Australia, will demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned from the 2024 Olympics, Lithuania’s sports minister said on Friday.

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