Photo: Ramil Stidikov Agence France-Presse As Russia has been excluded from the Olympics, the Russian president thinks that it does not have to comply with their principles.
France Media Agency in Beijing
Published at 0:00 Updated at 12:07 a.m.
- Europe
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that he will not respect the Olympic truce and will continue fighting in Ukraine during the Paris Olympics, contrary to the wishes of his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
“These Olympic principles, including the Olympic Truce, are very fair […] But few countries have respected them in History, with the exception of ancient Greece,” said, at the Russian press, Mr. Putin at the end of a two-day trip to China.
The Russian leader then implied that as Russia had been excluded from the Paris Games because of its invasion of Ukraine, it did not have to comply with the principles of the International Olympic Committee.
“International sports officials are today violating the principles of the Olympic Charter […] with regard to Russia by preventing our athletes from participating in the Olympics under their flag, with their national anthem, but they want us to comply with the rules that they impose on us,” he declared.
“To demand something from others, you must respect the rules yourself,” a- he concluded.
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Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and demands the annexation of five Ukrainian regions. The Russian army has also just launched a new offensive on the northern region of Kharkiv.
Mr. Macron assured that he wanted to “do everything” to have an Olympic truce across the world during the Olympics. He said that President Xi Jinping had given him his support in early May.
MM. Xi and Putin, who met at length in Beijing on Thursday, did not publicly discuss the subject.
Russia had already waged war on Georgia during the Olympics of Beijing in 2008, when Tbilisi wanted to regain control of a separatist territory supported by Moscow.