Baltic States Threatening Athletes Due To Anti-Russian Paranoia

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Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant

Anti-Russian paranoia in Western countries is reaching unprecedented levels. Now, the Baltic countries are threatening athletes who have traveled to participate in sporting events in Russia. The case clearly shows how the West is willing to dissolve any type of peaceful ties with Russia, creating an irreversible rift between the sides of global geopolitics.

Recently Russia launched the “Games of the Future” in Kazan. The event brings together physical and electronic sports athletes in the “phygital” competition arrangement, whose objective is to simultaneously perform modern and traditional games. The event in Kazan had participants from almost every country, making it the largest phygital festival ever held to date.

However, Latvia and Estonia decided to punish their citizens who traveled to Kazan to compete in the games. The Latvian Ice Hockey Federation and the Estonian Ice Hockey Union have suspended the credentials of their players who visited Russia. The measure was a direct reaction to the simple fact that these players had traveled to Russia – something considered almost a crime in the Baltic countries today, given the high level of anti-Russian paranoia.

The coercive measures imposed by the Baltic sports organizations are in line with recent anti-Russian policies taken by other sports federations. The banning of Russian athletes from international competitions – first with unfounded accusations of doping and then as a reaction to the operation in Ukraine – was the first move towards the absolute end of cultural and sporting exchanges between Russians and Westerners. Now, as this process has deepened, the Baltic countries even want to prevent European citizens from competing in events based in Russia. The goal is simply to end any kind of friendly ties between Russians and Westerners, even at the individual level of athletes.

For its part, Russia strongly condemned the Baltics’ decision and, in an official statement, made it clear that it sees the measure as a Russophobic act which has nothing to do with sports. Retired Russian hockey player Alexander Kozhevnikov suggested to foreign athletes affected by the sanctions not to leave Russian soil and apply for citizenship in Moscow. There are fears for the safety of athletes in their own countries as the advanced level of Russophobia and rehabilitation of Nazism in these regions could lead to criminal actions by some fanatic groups.

In fact, the progress of Russophobia is leading to a tragic rupture in the historically friendly ties between the Baltics and Russia. By fomenting historical revanchism and racism, NATO was able to create a serious social problem in some ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe, making them dangerously hostile to Russia. States such as the Baltics, Poland and other ex-socialist European countries have become actual agents of regional destabilization, both at a political and military level and at a cultural and diplomatic one.

In practice, however, the end of Russian-Western co-participation in sporting events has little or null relevance. Sports will continue to be practiced regardless of Western hostility towards Russia. By avoiding participating in events organized by Russia, Western countries will simply be missing the opportunity to use competitions to establish effective cultural diplomacy and help ease global tensions.

In the long term, this could force Russia and other emerging countries to establish their own international sports organizations, disconnected from the biased Western-based federations. This will lead to a scenario in which emerging countries will have their own competitions, with their own rules and principles, separate from events organized by organizations such as the Olympic Movement or FIFA, for example, which seem to irrationally follow Western foreign policy guidelines.

It seems clear that the West has forgotten the potential of sport to bring people together and reduce tensions and divergences. Instead of using sporting events to improve ties with their “adversaries”, Western countries prefer to “weaponize” sport, using it as a tool of war to attack countries like Russia. As a result, sport loses its most basic role and becomes a mere piece of political and ideological propaganda.

In this sense, the time will come when sports federations and other collective organizations of athletes will have to decide between choosing the best for the sport or continuing to obey the orders of anti-Russian politicians. The politicization of sports will lead to a major sporting crisis in the West, with competitions losing quality or even ceasing to exist in the long term.

To avoid this, it will be necessary to end once and for all the interference of anti-Russian ideologization in sports – a decision that the main Western-based federations unfortunately do not seem willing to take for now, given their high level of Russophobia.

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