Access & Policy

Russian flag to fly at Paralympics

Shawn Maloney

20 Feb 2026 — 2 min read

Ukrainian officials will boycott the opening ceremony of the 2026 Paralympic games if athletes from Russia and Belarus are allowed to compete under their own flags.

Earlier this week, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) cleared the way for 10 para athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the upcoming Milano Cortina Paralympics. Russian athletes have competed in recent games as "Individual Neutral Athletes" unaccompanied by national flags and symbols.

But this is different. At the Paralympics, the IPC confirmed that Russian athletes will wear their home colors and will hear their national anthem played aloud for any gold medals. Matvii Bidnyi, Ukraine Minister of Youth and Sports, blasted the move on social media, writing:

"The flags of Russia and Belarus have no place at international sporting events that stand for fairness, integrity, and respect. These are the flags of regimes that have turned sport into a tool of war, lies, and contempt… Giving them a platform means giving a voice to war propaganda."

The Russian flag has not been raised at an Olympic or Paralympic event since the Sochi games in 2014. Following Sochi, the Russian Federation was suspended for orchestrating an elaborate, state-sponsored doping scheme that International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, called “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games”. Both Russia and Belarus were suspended again following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has routinely used the Olympic and Paralympic games to sportwash their image and provide cover for military action. The attack on Ukraine occurred just four days after the conclusion of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The Kyiv Post recently reported that over 650 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed in the conflict and over 800 sport facilities have been destroyed.

The decision to welcome Russia back to the international stage arrived during the same week that the IOC disqualified Ukrainian skeleton racer, Vladyslav Heraskevych, from the Winter Olympics for wearing a helmet featuring images of fellow Ukrainian athletes who were killed in the war. It now seems clear that the 2026 Paralympics are being used to soft launch Russia back into the international community, well ahead of the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

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