On the morning of February 24th, Russia and its ally Belarus started a full-scale invasion of its neighbor Ukraine. There are multiple articles covering the war (such as this one for some background or Meduza’s articles with live updates), so I will not go into the details of the military action. I will talk about what the war means for artistic gymnastics in general and Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian artistic gymnastics specifically.
What happens to the Ukrainian gymnasts who are currently competing abroad?
Five Ukrainian artistic gymnasts – Illia Kovtun, Nazar Chepurnyi, Roman Vaschchenko, Daniela Batrona, and Yuliia Kasianenko are currently competing at the FIG Apparatus World Cup in Cottbus. On Thursday, the first day of the competition, they woke up to the news of their country being invaded and their home towns being bombed. Despite this, four of them (except for Kasianenko, for undisclosed reasons) competed on both qualification days and qualified to the finals – Kovtun made finals on floor, pommel horse, parallel bars, and horizontal bar, Vaschchenko qualified to the rings final, Chepurnyi to the vault final, and Batrona to bars and beam finals. The finals will take place on February 26th and 27th.
Four of the gymnasts are also registered for the Doha World Cup next week and are supposed to fly to Qatar directly from Germany. Igor Radivilov was also supposed to join them there but that will only be possible if Radivilov is already abroad. For the future competitions, it is not clear whether Ukrainian gymnasts will be able to continue training and whether the national federation will keep functioning and will be able to make travel arrangements for them. MAG gymnasts over 18 who are not currently abroad will not be able to leave Ukraine to travel to competitions because of the mandatory draft. Female gymnasts might potentially relocate abroad and continue training and competing. For now, there have been no official statements either from the Ukrainian Federation or the FIG/European Gymnastics.
Kovtun and Batrona also compete in the Italian Serie A and their clubs offered to host them after they finish competing in Doha. It is not yet clear whether they accepted and whether similar arrangements are being made for other gymnasts in their delegation. Kovtun, Chepurnyi and Vashchenko are all over 18 years old. If they go back to Ukraine, they will not be able to leave the country because all Ukrainian males aged 18 to 60 are now subject to the general draft. All gymnasts and coaches have families back in Ukraine, for example, Kovtun’s coach Irina Nadiuk has young children. However, if they decide to go back to Ukraine, it will not be easy – all flights to and from the country are suspended and ground transportation within the country is currently unreliable. The national team center where the gymnasts train year-round is at Koncha-Zaspa, to the south of Kyiv. Kyiv is currently under siege with Russian forces coming from several directions and the military action happening a couple of dozens kilometers from the center.
Will any gymnasts have to fight in the war?
Some Ukrainian gymnasts most certainly will. Some of them are technically already in the military. For example, Oleg Verniaiev is a senior lieutenant and has been undergoing regular military training. Those with no training are likely to be drafted last, although they might volunteer. Female gymnasts will not be drafted but may volunteer.
Russian gymnasts are extremely unlikely to participate in any military action, even those of them who are technically in the army or sponsored by the army. Russia has a much larger population and for now, only those in the active army are being sent to the war front.
Why are the Russian gymnasts silent on social media?
They are not allowed to talk, it’s a simple as that. It could be that they are not allowed to post anything in relation to the war or they are not allowed to post any criticism towards the Russian government. There is no 100% confirmation but multiple Russian companies and governmental organizations prohibited their employees from commenting on the situation publicly (e.g. the main Russian sports channel MatchTV) and there is no reason to think the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation or the Ministry of Sports are any different. Violating this rule would probably result in a number of negative consequences for the gymnasts’ and coaches’ career and potentially even consequences for their families and their own imprisonment. Over the past few days, thousands of peaceful protesters all around Russia were arrested and are facing fines, community services and even jail time. Some were arrested for things like putting a poster with “No War” in their window. Of course, it can be argued that this risk is much less than what Ukrainians are facing now but it definitely serves as a deterrent against speaking out.
The only well-known Russian gymnast to say something was Maria Paseka who did a live stream on her Instagram and tried to express her views on the war. While her overall sentiment was “war is bad, let’s all live in peace”, she was also clearly heavily influenced by the Russian propaganda and expressed support for the government’s actions because she felt they were in defense of Russia and Russian speakers.
Nikita Nagorny, while staying silent on the matter, shared a post from the Young Army organization in his Instagram story. The post announced the collaboration between the Young Army movement of Donetsk and Luhanks regions and the Russian organization. The Young Army Cades National Movement is a militarized patriotic youth organization that aims to raise a generation loyal to Putin’s regime. The organization, among other things, works on spreading propaganda in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. It is financed by the Russian Ministry of Defence. Nagorny became the head of the General Staff of the organization in 2020 and it is not a simply nominal position – he has been actively involved in the organization, especially after the Tokyo Olympics when he had a bit of a break from training and competing.
Will Russian gymnasts be able to keep competing internationally?
Unclear for now. There are two issues here – the reaction of the sporting authorities and the travel and visa difficulties.
The IOC asked international sporting federations to strip Russia and Belarus of all sporting events they’re supposed to host in the near future and and their flags and anthems. Russian flag and anthem at events like Euros or Worlds are already banned because of doping violations, so it’s not much of a change for them. The FIG hasn’t addressed the matter publicly yet. Russia is not hosting any artistic gymnastics events this year but is supposed to host an Acrobatic Gymnastics World Cup in May and a Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup in August. These might be postponed, canceled, or moved to other countries. Ukraine is also supposed to host two big international events – Rhythmic Gymnastics Grand Prix in March and Ukraine International Cup in artistic gymnastics in May. The Grand Prix is now marked as postponed on the FIG website. Lidia Vynograndna, an RG Brevet judge who was involved in the organization of the competition expressed her disappointment with the lack of support and guidance the Ukrainian federation received from the FIG.
If Russian athletes will be allowed to compete internationally, getting visas and traveling to competitions is another matter. Russian citizens need entry visas to travel to European countries, the US, the UK, Japan etc. Several countries have already announced they will stop issuing visas to Russian citizens, more are likely to join them in this decision in the future. The European Championships are in Germany this year and the World Championships are in the UK, both countries require visas and for now are still issuing them to Russian citizens.
Flights are another matter. The UK has banned Aeroflot, the flagship Russian air carrier from landing in Britain. In response, Russia banned British airlines from entering its space. Several other companies are currently canceling flights to Russia. Poland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic banned Russian airlines from entering their airspace which makes air travel between Russia and Europe somewhat complicated. If more countries follow the suite, air travel to and from Russia can become a very complicated matter. However, Russia is still allied with China, Turkey, and Arab countries and their airlines are not likely to stop flying to Russia. Thus, air travel will likely still be possible even if the war continues, but it might take much longer and become more expensive.
The next international competition Russian gymnasts are supposed to attend is the Doha World Cup next week. Qatar is very unlikely to sanction Russia, so if the FIG does not impose any sanctions, they will be able to compete in Doha.
What else is happening?
VTB Bank has been sanctioned by multiple countries. This bank works closely with the Russian government. Its assets abroad were frozen and its ability to make international transactions severely limited. VTB has been under sanctions since 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. That did not stop the bank from sponsoring the International Gymnastics Federation – from 2009 and at least until the end of 2020, the bank was one of the main sponsors of the federation. It is not clear whether the bank still has any financial ties to the FIG and all its mentions were removed from the federation’s website. However, it is still the main sponsor of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation and the president of the federation (and a member of the FIG Executive Committee) Vassily Titov is one of the senior officials at VTB. If the bank’s financial situation worsens due to the sanctions, it might have less money to spend on sponsoring sports.
Russian gymnasts might become a much less frequent presence of social media, at least on those you are used to. Facebook refused to comply with the Russian government’s demand to stop censoring Russian propaganda pages and, as a result, Russia is limiting access to Facebook and Instagram for its residents. As the war goes one, this might spread to other media as well.
What can you do to help?
At the moment, I am not aware of any donation campaigns for the Ukrainian gymnasts. If such campaigns start in the future, I will post the information here and on Gymnovosti’s social media.
Several relief organizations are accepting donations for people who are staying in Ukraine and for Ukrainian refugees. More information is here or here. Ukraine is not a rich country and its resources are being depleted fast. They are in severe need of various resources, from food and fuel to medical supplies.
Donate to Ukrainian Red Cross
Throughout the next few weeks, I will post old interviews with Ukrainian gymnasts and profile articles showcasing some of the gymnasts as a way to show them support and promote links to organizations that collect donations for Ukraine.
