Alexander Ovechkin barely finished his jubilant belly slide across the ice last April before the Russian propaganda machine started revving up.
The Kremlin seized the chance to portray a milestone goal from one of Vladimir Putin’s most loyal and high-profile supporters as a national triumph for Russia.
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Putin publicly congratulated Ovechkin on surpassing Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer, describing the feat as “not only a personal success but also a true celebration for fans in Russia and abroad.” Political allies of Putin praised Ovechkin for having “never shied away from his passport” even at a time “when Russians have been bullied for being Russian.” Even the cosmonauts on the International Space Station shouted out Ovechkin from orbit.
When Ovechkin spoke at mid-ice moments after making history, the Washington Capitals star thanked his family, teammates, coaches, trainers — even the opposing goalie who failed to save his laser shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. Ovechkin concluded his speech by gesturing toward the Capital One Arena crowd and saying, “All of you fans, the whole world, Russia, we did it, boys, we did it!”
The way that Russia presented Ovechkin’s comments was more politically galvanizing than how they originally sounded. Billboards across Moscow featured Ovechkin’s face and the four-word quote, “Russians, we did it!”
Opportunities for Russia to turn sporting success into a propaganda tool for the state figure to be far more scarce at this month’s Winter Olympics in Italy. The Russians are a sporting pariah, banned by the IOC along with close ally Belarus less than a week after the invasion of Ukraine four years ago.
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Thirteen athletes from Russia and seven from Belarus will partake in the Milan Cortina Games, but they’ll do so without flags, colors, anthems or a place in the medal standings. They are officially stateless, competing not for their country but as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN).
The neutral athletes will have a presence in eight sports: Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, luge, ski mountaineering and short and long track speed skating. The IOC has declared that Russian and Belarussian athletes cannot compete in team sports, eliminating the possibility of Russia sending its powerful men’s hockey team to challenge for a medal.
Four years ago at the Beijing Olympics, Russia competed as the “Russian Olympic Committee.” At the 2026 Games, Russia will not be allowed to compete in any team events and only 13 athletes total will compete as an Individual Neutral Athlete. (Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP via Getty Images)
(KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV via Getty Images)
Individual athletes from Russia and Belarus who qualified for the Olympics in their respective sports still had to clear one more hurdle to gain the right to participate in the Milan Cortina Games. An independent three-person panel conducted background checks on each athlete to weed out those who “are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies” or who “actively support the war” in Ukraine.
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Ovechkin is the quintessential example of a Russian athlete who would have been unlikely to pass through the vetting process even if the IOC had allowed the country’s hockey team to compete. He started the #PutinTeam social media movement in support of Putin months before Russia’s 2018 presidential election. He also has repeatedly declined to issue an outright condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
To this day, despite years of scrutiny from American media, Ovechkin’s Instagram profile photo features him posing alongside Putin at the Kremlin.
The exclusion or neutral participation of Russian athletes is damaging to the Kremlin, according to sports geopolitics expert Lukas Aubin, because it removes one of the regime’s most effective messaging tools.
“Sport has been a powerful symbolic resource for the Kremlin,” said Aubin, author of the 2022 book “The Sportocratura under Vladimir Putin.” “Olympic medals, world championships, and the hosting of mega-events such as the 2014 Sochi Olympics or the 2018 World Cup helped sustain narratives of a successful, modern and resilient Russia overcoming post-Soviet decline. Such moments provided highly visible performances of national strength, both for domestic audiences and for the international community.
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“When those stages are closed off, the regime loses a communicative instrument. This does not threaten the political system directly, but it weakens one of its most effective symbolic devices.”
Russia last competed in a Winter Olympics as Russia when it hosted the Sochi Games in 2014. Then came the discovery of a massive, state-sponsored Russian doping program, revealed by whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov and confirmed via an investigation headed by Canadian legal professor Dr. Richard McLaren.
The McLaren Report found that Russia had encouraged more than 1,000 summer, winter and Paralympic athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs between 2011 and 2015. The cheating reached its apex during the Winter Games in Sochi with positive urine and blood tests getting switched out and athletes potentially being given drugs without their knowledge.
Before the IOC had even lifted doping sanctions against Russia, the country invaded Ukraine just days after the conclusion of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Fighting and aerial strikes continue despite U.S. attempts to broker peace. As a result, Russia will have little presence in Milan Cortina, just as it did during the Summer Olympics in Paris two years ago.
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With Russia sidelined at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Kremlin tried to simultaneously undercut and defame the quality of those Games while reframing Russia’s exclusion as persecution by the hostile West. The Kremlin also attempted to create a post-Paris multi-sport event of its own that would welcome athletes from countries friendly to Russia, but the ambitious project was first delayed and then effectively abandoned.
Now, without its star-studded hockey team and many other top winter sports athletes in Italy, Russia’s best hope for a medal could be 18-year-old figure skater Adeliia Petrosian. The raven-haired three-time Russian national champion is known as the first female skater to perform a quadruple loop in competition, but she has rarely competed outside her home country and is unproven on a global stage.
Petrosian is likely to draw additional scrutiny during competition as the latest prodigy of Eteri Tutberidze, the controversial coach of Kamila Valieva at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Valieva, then a 15-year-old European champion and gold medal favorite, fell twice during her free skate and finished a disappointing fourth place amid a doping scandal that resulted in a four-year ban.
In an unusually strong rebuke, then-IOC president Thomas Bach admitted he was “very disturbed” to see Tutberidze berate Valieva as she came off the ice even though she had been under enormous mental stress since the revelation of her positive drug test.
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“When afterwards I saw how she was received by her closest entourage, with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this,” Bach said.
For Russia, any pathway back to the Olympic stage would likely require a peace treaty with Ukraine, compliance with World Anti-Doping Agency drug testing policy and weakened resolve among allied Western governments. That’s a lot of hurdles to clear by Los Angeles 2028, but Aubin insists the possibility “cannot be entirely ruled out.”
Until then, Russia remains in purgatory, with no global sporting stage to showcase its strength to the world.
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“Sport is a double-edged sword for any state that turns it into a political instrument,” Aubin said. “When victories come, they bring visibility, prestige, and a sense of national elevation. When sanctions, scandals, or exclusions follow, they expose the state to reputational damage, international scrutiny, and symbolic loss. The same machinery that amplifies triumphs also amplifies humiliation.”
