Thomas Bach’s actions should be investigated, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has become “the conductor” of an anti-Russian campaign in sports, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
Zakharova’s statement comes in the wake of a scandalous interview where the IOC chief admitted to a pair of pranksters that Ukrainians have been asked to spy on Russian athletes online so that they could be banned from the upcoming Paris Games. Bach also accused Russia of being “very aggressive” toward the Olympic Committee.
“Basically, it’s he (Bach) who has become the conductor of the entire anti-Russian fuss inside the Olympic establishment,” Zakharova told Channel One Russia. “In my view, all these statements are sensational. It’s clear that all of this requires a public inquiry and a journalistic investigation, as well as a probe within the organization (IOC),” she added.
According to the foreign ministry spokeswoman, the West is doing everything it can to prevent the scandal from “gaining traction.”
On April 2, a videocall was posted by two Russian pranksters known as Vovan and Lexus, with one of them impersonating an African official. In the video, Bach claimed that by sanctioning Russian athletes, the IOC is “punishing those who are responsible for the annexation.”
The IOC chief was apparently referring to the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums in 2022. Crimea had done the same in 2014 after a Western-backed coup in Kiev.
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