BERLIN – Ukraine will launch an international campaign to prevent Russian athletes from competing in the Paris Olympics, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.

Sports minister Vadym Gutzeit earlier said that Ukraine would not rule out boycotting the Games if Russian and Belarusian athletes took part in the summer of 2024.

Following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they have been banned in some sports while they are allowed to compete under a neutral flag in others.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), eager to see them back in major competitions, said on Wednesday the Olympic Council of Asia had offered athletes from the two countries the chance to compete in Asia, giving them a qualification pathway for the Paris Olympics. The IOC also said “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport”.

“Today we will a start a marathon for fair play aimed at clearing the management of international Olympic structures of hypocrisy as well as (preventing) any attempts to drag representatives of the terrorist state into world sport,” Mr Zelensky said in a video address.

“It is obvious that any neutral flag of Russian athletes would be stained with blood... Olympic principles and war are fundamentally opposed to each other.”

In a tweet following his speech, he called on IOC president Thomas Bach to visit the war-torn city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been the stage of intense fighting.

“I invite Mr Bach to Bakhmut. So that he could see with his own eyes that neutrality does not exist,” Mr Zelensky wrote.

In December, the Ukrainian leader told Bach he opposed the idea of Russian athletes taking part under any kind of neutral banner in the 2024 Summer Games. But the IOC is eager to include Russian and Belarusian athletes as neutrals in Paris.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that any attempt to squeeze Moscow out of international sport was “doomed to fail” – seemingly in response to Mr Gutzeit’s threat.

The Ukrainian sports minister, writing on Facebook, said if Ukraine’s protest fails to ensure the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes, “I do not rule out the possibility that we will boycott and refuse participation in the Olympics”.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many sports organisations have moved events and suspended Russian teams or athletes, while sponsors have ended contracts in protests against the war.

“Russian strikes have claimed the lives of hundreds of Ukrainians who could have enriched world sport with their talent,” added Mr Zelensky. REUTERS