Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matitsyn said on Saturday that calls from ministers of more than 30 countries to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Olympics are unacceptable, TASS news agency reported, citing Reuters.

A group of 35 countries including the United States, Germany and Australia will demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned from the 2024 Olympics, Lithuania’s sports minister said on Friday, adding to uncertainty about the Paris Games.

The move increases pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is desperate to avoid the sports event being disrupted by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The IOC left the door open for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals.

“This is a direct intervention of ministers in the activities of independent international sports organizations, an attempt to dictate the conditions of athletes’ participation in international competitions, which is absolutely unacceptable,” Matitsyn said, TASS quotes.

“Now we see an undisguised desire to destroy the unity of international sports and the international Olympic movement, to make sports a means of pressure to solve political problems,” said Matitsyn.

The RIA Novosti news agency also reported that Matitsyn called the proposal of Polish Sports Minister Kamil Bortnychuk to create a refugee team, which would include Russian and Belarusian dissidents, “humiliating”.

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