The death or injury of hundreds of thousands of people since the war in Ukraine started in 2022 is a fact that everyone should mourn.

My heart goes out to the families whose lives have been devastated by the irrecoverable loss of loved ones on all sides, not least because the war should have ended within weeks of it starting,

That is why everyone should unify in calling for peace and an end to this monumental human tragedy.

The Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina has served up a reminder of the massive politicisation of sport and culture by Ukraine designed to maintain a global state of sympathy and support for a war that their leaders do not want to end.

Ever since the war started, we have been bombarded by publicity stunts launched by Ukraine, seemingly to provoke solidarity with their cause, certainly to isolate and demonise Russian competitors and definitely to sustain the war fighting spirit among their allies and at home.

We have had tennis players refusing to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian opponents, Ukraine’s football team was forced to cover a political slogan on their national jersey, Ukrainian judo players refusing to compete in world championships and, in the arena of singing, a truly dreadful Ukrainian rap winning the Eurovision song contest.

Russian and Belarusian contestants remain permanently locked out of international sports and cultural events, despite the participation of Israel, North Korea, Syria and a range of African countries where violent conflict continues to rage.

While attention at the Winter Olympics today will hopefully shift to Great Britain possibly winning a rare gold medal in the skeleton, all of the attention has been sucked away by Vladyslav Heraskevych who was banned from the men’s skeleton event for wearing a helmet depicting twenty four Ukrainian sportspeople who had died during the war.

Heraskevych, ranked 11^th in the world, was not expected to win a medal at the games, and yet all of the global media attention is now on him.

This was clearly a politically motivated stunt to maintain global attention on the war in Ukraine at a time when pressure grows for it to end.

Wearing a helmet depicting people killed in war was intended as a political statement and as such contravened the International Olympic Committees rules on Athlete expression.

Imagine an Israeli athlete wearing a commemorative picture of victims of the 7 October attack or of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza. Rightly, they would have been condemned and excluded from the contest as Heraskevych has been.

The International Bobsleigh Skeleton Foundation has rules. They said.

The Winter Olympic Federation is aware of the decision taken by the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) to withdraw a Skeleton athlete from the start list of the Milano Cortina 2026 Men’s Skeleton event on 12 February 2026, following the athlete’s refusal to comply with the IOC Guidelines on Athlete Expression.

During the Olympic Winter Games, the IOC Guidelines on Athlete Expression — which apply to all participating athletes — provide several opportunities to express personal views and to mourn, including in mixed zones, on social media, during press conferences and in interviews.

The Guidelines on Athlete Expression were developed following a global consultation in 2021 involving 3,500 athletes worldwide. They have the full support of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, as well as the Athletes’ Commissions of International Federations and National Olympic Committees.

Respect for rules and regulations, both on and off the field of play, is a fundamental principle of international sport. WOF members fully support their consistent and fair implementation.

Let’s be completely clear about the specifics of the case. Heraskevych had been asked not to wear the helmet and disregarded this during practice runs on the track, wilfully and knowingly breaking the rules. He had been told that he was free to show his helmet before and after competition but that he would not be allowed to wear the helmet during any competition, instead offered the right to wear a black armband instead.

Threatened with being withdrawn from the competition Heraskevych nonetheless refused to budge even after meeting with the IOC president Kirsty Salisbury. Salisbury then appeared, tear streaked in a performative media appearance expressing her regret that poor dear Vladyslav wasn’t allowed to compete.

The BBC has played its part, athletes claiming how unfair it was that poor of Vladyslav was treated in such an unfair way.

Heraskevych knew the rules and it chose to broke those rules knowing that the consequences of doing so would be significant amounts of global media coverage.

“Because of their (the dead athletes’) sacrifice, we are able to compete here as a team. I will not betray them,” Heraskevych told an outdoor press conference by the Olympic rings in Cortina on Tuesday.

Ukraine is allowed to compete in the Olympics as a team, wearing their national colours just like every other country in the world, except those that have been banned including, of course, Russia.

This behaviour, by an athlete who was unlikely to win a medal, was driven by a crushing sense of entitlement and a victim mentality.

And a feeling that Ukraine should have special treatment and that normal rules should not apply to them, while at the same time promoting a total ban on Russia.

Poor me, I have been banned because Russia invaded my country and its all your fault for not supporting Ukraine enough.

This has nothing to do with memorial of people senselessly killed during the war.

It is yet another effort to keep Ukraine in the global spotlight as the victim of Russian aggression at a time of waning public interest and diminishing financial support from their sponsors.

The underlying subtext is that Ukraine is right Russia is wrong and you must help us to defeat them, even though we are losing and cannot win.

A powerful statement might have been for Ukraine’s winter athletes to join together at the start of the competition to call for the war to end.

But you’ll never see that as Bankova would never approve it.

Heraskevych has said that his disqualification was the price of dignity.

This is not about dignity but about the maintenance of the war and the total exclusion of Russia from international sport and cultural events.

The most dignified act would have been to compete. But if Vladyslav had competed no one would notice as he’d finish far outside of the medals.

Instead, Heraskevych has received global media coverage of Ukraine’s war cause for several days. That he has launched an appeal wtiih the Court of Arbitration for Sport is designed principally to keep the focus on him and his cause long after his belligerent protest. That will allow him to milk the story for even longer.

Job done. What a complete farce.

The original Olympic games in ancient Greece were opportunities for warring city states to come together under the conditions of a truce to compete in sports.

That is what the Olympics should be about and continuing a ban on Russia runs counter to that.

A powerful statement against war would be for Russian and Ukrainian athletes to stand together and to call for peace. But you’ll never see that happen.

That would be too dignified.