The International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee on Tuesday, marking a big step towards Russia’s reintegration into the Olympic fold ahead of the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ROC was suspended in October 2023 for recognizing regional Olympic councils in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The IOC said on Tuesday its executive board had lifted that suspension, which is able to see Russian athletes back in lots of international competitions including LA28 Olympic qualifiers, but had not yet decided whether Russia could display its flag and colours or have its anthem played on the Games.
“We don’t condone any wars, including this one. We’ll proceed to support Ukraine like now we have since this began. But I don’t consider athletes should pay the value,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry told a press conference. “We don’t need to hold athletes accountable for the actions of their government.”
The choice marks the most recent step by the IOC to ease Russia’s return to international sport after urging federations in December to readmit Russian and Belarusian youth athletes (under-23s).
“We made it clear that each one athletes had the chance to compete on the Olympic Games. That is what this decision speaks to. It allows Russian athletes to participate in sports competitions. We thought it was really essential for athletes to have that possibility,” Coventry said.
Russian sports minister Mikhail Degtyarev said the IOC’s decision should clear the best way for Russian athletes to make a full return to the international sporting stage.
“Our country’s return to the Olympic family is a green light for international federations to reinstate all our athletes,” Degtyarev said.
Russian athletes competed as neutrals on the 2024 Paris Olympics and on the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games.
‘Shameful decision’
But there was criticism, with Ukraine’s foreign ministry calling the choice ‘troubling’ and urging countries hosting competitions to uphold a ban on Russian state symbols.
Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from the 2026 Winter Olympics over a helmet carrying a message about Ukraine, told Reuters the IOC’s decision was “absolutely shameful”.
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Athlete-led advocacy group Global Athlete and FairSport said the choice showed little accountability by the IOC amid an ongoing conflict.
“This decision represents a fundamental departure from the principles of Olympism. By welcoming Russia back into the Olympic fold despite its history of state-sponsored doping and its ongoing war against Ukraine, the IOC has chosen to rewrite, to lower, its own standards for stakeholder accountability,” they said in a joint statement.
Fragmented participation?
The choice, nonetheless, is unlikely to trigger a full participation of Russian athletes across all sports, with many international federations still maintaining separate bans for them.
The World Athletics Council last week reaffirmed its decision to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition, 4 years after it initially imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
World Athletics voted to finish its eight-year doping ban of the Russian Athletics Federation in 2023 however the separate ban over the invasion of Ukraine has kept out their athletes.
Several other international federations have similar suspensions in place.
Asked whether the IOC’s decision could lead on to a fragmented participation of Russian athletes ahead of the LA Olympics, Coventry said: “We don’t foresee any patchwork.”
Olympic qualifying events have already taken place for some sports with most kicking off their qualifiers later in 2026 and 2027.
The IOC had said in imposing its ban in 2023 that Russia recognizing regional Olympic councils in occupied parts of Ukraine violated the Olympic Charter and the territorial integrity of Ukraine’s Olympic Committee.
On Tuesday it said: “The ROC confirmed that it doesn’t, and is not going to, conduct any activities in these territories. The IOC EB will proceed to closely monitor the situation referring to any ROC activities in those territories, and reserves the best to take any further measures if deemed vital.”
Along with Russia being ostracized over its invasion of Ukraine, its athletes’ return to competition comes against the backdrop of one of the damaging doping scandals in Olympic history.
The country has been under scrutiny since a 2015 World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned report found evidence of systematic doping in Russian athletics, followed by findings that a state-sponsored cover-up operated across the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
The IOC said all Russian athletes now returning to international competition would have to satisfy relevant anti-doping requirements.
Russia was barred from competing under its flag at several subsequent Games, with many athletes admitted only as neutrals, and WADA imposed a four-year ban in 2019 after Moscow was found to have manipulated laboratory data — a sanction later cut to 2 years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Russian officials have repeatedly denied the existence of a state-backed doping program.
“We ask to make sure that adequate testing is finished on Russian athletes coming into the LA28 Games,” Coventry said.