Written by Gavin O’Reilly
In the mainstream media’s ongoing coverage of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, much attention has been paid to the numerous high-profile Ukrainian Boxers who have returned to the Eastern European country to serve as military reservists for Kiev.
Former three-weight world champion Vasiliy Lomachenko, current unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, and former world heavyweight champion brothers, Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko – current Mayor of Kiev and instrumental in the Euromaidan colour revolution protests – have all featured heavily in western media reports, the clear message being portrayed that despite their immense wealth and fame, they have all bravely returned to Ukraine to face off against the forces of a Hitler-esque Vladimir Putin.
This coverage also comes amidst the widespread blacklisting of Russia in the sporting world following last months’ launching of the current military operation, with FIFA suspending Russia from the upcoming World Cup, all world title Boxing bouts being suspended in Russia, and Formula One cancelling the 2022 Russian Grand Prix.
Therefore, Monday’s announcement that Oleksandr Usyk would face Britain’s Anthony Joshua in a lucrative rematch in Saudi Arabia, having defeated the Englishman on points in front of a 65,000+ crowd at London’s Tottenham Hotspur stadium last September, demonstrates the glaring hypocrisy of the western establishment – with Riyadh having led a seven year long war on neighbouring Yemen, one that has led to mass-starvation and the estimated deaths of 85,000 children.
To understand this widely differing approach to both Russia and Saudi Arabia by the sporting world, the wider geopolitical and financial factors at play in the West’s relationship with Moscow and Riyadh must be brought into play.
The world’s largest exporter of oil, Saudi Arabia also serves a key role in maintaining US-NATO hegemony in the Middle East by acting as a political and military bulwark against Iran, with Tehran having been a former key-western ally until the 1979 Islamic Revolution saw the US and UK-backed Shah Pahlavi overthrown and replaced with the anti-Western and anti-Zionist Ayatollah Khomeini.
In March 2015, following the takeover of the Yemeni capital Sana’a by the Houthi rebels – long accused of being backed by Tehran – a Saudi air campaign would begin in order to restore Riyadh’s favoured Presidential candidate, Abdrabbah Mansur Hadi, to power.
Using US and British-supplied bombs, and with military advisors from both countries on hand to assist in the selection of targets, the Royal Saudi Air Force would go on to target the agricultural, sanitation and medical infrastructure of Yemen, leading to mass-starvation and the largest recorded Cholera outbreak in history, a situation exacerbated even further by a Saudi blockade preventing food and medical supplies from entering the country – one that still remains in place despite Riyadh’s ceasefire announcement on Tuesday.
Despite this seven-year long onslaught receiving miniscule coverage by the corporate media, the global condemnation of Saudi Arabia following the October 2018 murder and dismemberment of Saudi-dissident Jamal Khashoggi, would result in Riyadh pursuing a campaign of ‘sportswashing’ – a tactic in which high-profile sporting and media events are held in the Gulf Kingdom in order to sanitise its image worldwide.
Indeed this was highlighted only last Friday when a missile strike by the Yemeni armed forces against a key oil refinery in Jeddah brought the hosting of the Formula One Saudi Grand Prix into question, the race track being a mere ten miles from the site of the explosion.
Usyk’s upcoming opponent, former unified world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, also fought another lucrative rematch against American Andy Ruiz. Jr in the Saudi town of Diriyah in December 2019, the most high-profile Boxing match held in the desert kingdom to date.
However when it comes to Russia, having launched the current Ukraine operation in response to almost nine years of Western provocations following the 2014 Euromaidan colour revolution, including the production of bio-weapons on its borders, no such opportunity is presented to hold prestigious sporting events – unlike Saudi Arabia, allowed to host the upcoming world heavyweight championship despite being responsible for a seven year long genocide in Yemen.
The hypocrisy is, to invade another country, even though a diplomatic route was possible. We are not living in the old times of imperialism anymore.
LOL no more imperialism when NATO is expanding all the way East up to Russia’s porch
Your filthy hypocrisy is sickening
But you’ll get yours too :) KARMA forgives no one
Who gives a shit where NATO is expanding? Guess what? Now it’s expanding even more thanks to the moronic invasion by the Putin faggots. Russia is now stuck with a bunch of fully armed neighboring countries.
And that’s the main issue. NATO can only thank Putin for making it important again. The same for the defense … armaments industry. On both sides, as Russia will have to rearm and update its equipment which obviously is out of date. That especially counts for electronics and communication equipment.
Li’l lady, the NATO economies are flat-busted, and the MIC cash-grab is going to further destabilize the populations. NATO ended when they fled Afghanistan.
Fantastic question, and one that apparently nobody in the Ukrainian government asked. The answer, by the way, is Russia. The more you know!
Do the war crimes from the western countries with their peace keeping operations justify the war crimes of the special operations?
Hopefully the madness of such nonsense is over soon. I have been vocal on both sides and it was clear from the beginning that the madness in Afghanistan would only lead to more suffering, no matter which side we speak of. I have been laughed at first, these days people pretend to have forgotten about it.
Are we really accepting that? Are we really living in that time again?
To be clear, no side is innocent, but why we people, who only die and suffer, accept that? We win nothing with that.
Back babbling about “justice” again? The imbecilic Ukrainian decision to push for NATO entry while carrying on with the Donbass ethnic cleansing has to go down as one of the all-time great blunders. It is as if no one in the Ukrainian state had any understanding of the Russian view of their national security. Unfathomable ignorance on the part of the Ukrotards.
Ukraine, the final nazis cemetery, it’s the nazi extinction. Buy rubles, yuans or rupies.
For what, no one needs rubels.
If you don’t like rubles, try to buy other normal currencies, only to avoid being freezed.
The idiotic occupation of Pripyat is not going according to plan. An entire convoy had to retreat from Ukraine for radiation exposure from Chernobyl. Infected with radiation. That means they only have a few weeks left to live. Russia’s finest. What a bunch more of fucking morons. https://www.the-sun.com/news/5017036/russian-troops-chernobyl-radiation-sickness/
Well if this is the case, how are then workers from crnobil doing? Probably all dead by now.
Whoah, whoah, whoah. Did you just try to introduce reality-based programming to a Ukrotard. What the hell are you thinking?
The Sun – Worst media in the UK, lol.
For a tabloid, they would the MSM to shame. I can’t take the dailymail seriously anymore. Pure propaganda.
Dailydrama, indeed. But there is more serious media around too.
But if you want to be informed objectively, you will have to check media from the different power blocks.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
No. The truth is the opposite of the “Ghost of Kiev”, “Snake Island last stand” media, no middle exists.
Lmao, OK I’ll play. How is everyone else ok? It should be drifting the same way the original disaster did. Many would be suffering by now or dead, not just soldiers. With years of birth defects and cancers popping up in the surrounding areas. What a sick thing to cheer. The world should sanction Ukraine for that incompetence, too. They had 30 years to fix that mess, what have they been doing?
An heat signature was picked up by the Russian satellite on the 21st of February, they advised the Pentagon of the possibility of an abnormal large concentration of uranium underneath the Chernobyl station. Bunkers were built under that station. Knowing the Russians wouldn’t dare to bomb the station , the Nazi-Ukros decided to build a nuclear weapon without NATO’s approval or OCDE. Since 2008, Ukraine had given up all his nuclear bombs to Russia for security accommodations. The Pentagon gave Putin the green light to intervene. Russian DOD sent the Spetnaz units to take control of this station. The station was protected by Western mercenaries. On the 24th of February, the Russians took control of that station successfully without any risk of radiation leaks.
Before that take-over, all personals, even the mercenaries were being controlled every week for possible radiation poisoning. All employees working outside or inside a nuclear plants, normally wear a radiation detection device as large as a ID badge. At the Chernobyl station, they all had that device.
Now, you have to understand, when an accident happens just like the one in Chernobyl, 30 years ago, it takes several hundreds years before it comes down to normalcy.
The MSM Fake news doesn’t tell you the truth ,just like the rest of what’s happening in Ukraine, about Chernobyl. EVEN if the Russian soldiers have been exposed to radiation, there are symptoms, could be mild to severe. As an example , the severe case are if you have been exposed to radiation leak inside a nuclear reactor, AND IT’S NOT THE CASE FOR THOSE SOLDIERS. SORRY GUYS, the RUSSIANS SOLDIERS WON’T DIE.
The Russian’ DOD won’t let their soldiers to die from excessive exposure to radiation.
COMMON SENSE does exist. There’s enough infos on the internet about exposure to radiation . What differentiate a human being from an animal IS logic and reasoning.
PLEASE USE DISCERNMENT before telling an idiocy.
Where did you hear all this?about the Russians getting permission from the Pentagon etc?
The Sun???😂😂😂😂 You are a bigger CUN t than I thought
Sport is politicised. Ironically the heavyweight champion is from NW England, the self-declared Gypsy King. Neither Usyk nor Joshua would have a chance against Fury.
Usyk is amazing though and has only a couple of fights at heavyweight
Politics and religion define hypocrisy. The UK sells arms to Saudi Arab despite their medieval Islamist regime. Islam generally retards development and freedoms. Half the population of such countries have to hide their hair in public, what idiocy. Iranian culture has stagnated under the Ayatollahs and anything remotely pleasurable is forbidden. I hope…
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 $𝟴𝟰, 𝟴𝟮𝟱𝟰 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝟮𝟱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝟮𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝟭𝟬 𝘁𝗼 𝟱𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝗯…𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝗦𝗶𝘁𝗲……http://foxnews7.tk/
Mariupol is nearly cleared of nazi azov. The remaining leadership tried to flea by helicopter and were shot down this morning, all according to Intel Slava Z. The situation looks exciting.
How did Khomeini come to lead a revolution? Where did he come from, space? US and other Western powers had a pivotal role in creating the 1979 revolution just as they did the overthrow of Mossadegh. Iran would and should be a very different country today if not for the involvement of UK, US and France.
Khomeini was a wrench thrown into the gear of the USA, as they didn’t want to lose influence in UK.
Idiot, Khomeini was kept in France until it was plain that the US/Israel was losing control of Iran. The Ayatollah was the option chosen to prevent nationalists coming to power. CIA happily assisted the mass executions of the educated class that opposed the Shah and made sure Khomeini was ready to roll when needed. The US has been using moslems in this fashion since the overthrow of Sukarno in 1965.
You are right! I went there in 2007 as part of my social studies thesis. I wanted to see the effects of voicing an opinion different to the social policies of the establishment. I preaching that women should be able to show their hair and that chadoor is old fashioned. I lasted 10 minutes. I spent 10 month sin Elgin prison where I was reformed and embraced Alor. Suppoedly. Then I was deported. So yeah, it is their way or the highway. If you are lucky. NOt as bad as North Korea or Saudi where they kill you for sure. In Iran if you don’t wanna live like desert tribal dude you can leave. That is their option, to leave country and probably never go back.
I am sorry to hear of your experiences. I am glad that you are OK now, and that you at least had an insight into the realities of your chosen discipline. Happy Perisan New Year anyway!
YES THE WORLD IS FUKED NOT OIL PAINTING. LEARN TO LET GO AND COME DANCE IN TEL AVIV SOMETIMES
Seriously? What hell of a school allowed this? That’s just insane.
Utter rubbish. This has to be the most absurd post on a website rife with nonsense. You are the new champion.
I wish libtards followed boxing, they’d rather watch the idiots kneel in the NFL or boys in dresses destroy female sports. Put them in skirts and lipstick they’ll watch.
>Anthony Joshua
>The Englishman
And I’m the crown prince of Dubai.
Putin decree signed:incompetetent nations must pay in roubles or no gas, no wheat, etc—bye bye impotent America-cannot hillbillies
The zio loving western snakes, especially the USA, United Snakes of Aipac, speaks with a forked tongue
“Hitler-esque Vladimir Putin” – who the fuck writes this dumb crap?