President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has imposed sanctions against ten athletes from Russia who publicly supported armed aggression against Ukraine, visited temporarily occupied territories, and were involved in activities related to the illegal removal of Ukrainian children. As reports the website of the President of Ukraine, the relevant decree No. 123/2026 was signed to implement the decision of the National Security and Defense Council.
The basis for forming the sanctions list was a petition by the Ukrainian skeleton athlete, member of the national Olympic team Vladyslav Geraskevych, on the basis of which persons involved in war propaganda, trips to the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia regions and Crimea, participation in events for illegally deported Ukrainian children and fundraising for the Russian military were identified.
The sanctions list included Angelina Melnikova, who supported Russian aggression on social networks, Svitlana Gomboyeva, who has repeatedly visited the annexed Crimea, Yana Yegoryan – ambassador of the sanctioned organization “Healthy Fatherland”, involved in the abduction of Ukrainian children, Yevgeny Baydusov, who visited the annexed Crimea, Imam Ganishov, who was in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhia region and temporarily occupied Sevastopol and distributed materials in support of the Russian aggression on social networks, Madina Taymazova, who participated in a propaganda event to legitimize the deportation of Ukrainian children from the TOT of Ukraine, Vladislav Larin, who called on Russian citizens to finance the occupiers, Maxim Khramtsov, who conducted propaganda events and a master class for children in temporarily occupied Donetsk, as well as Fedor Chudinov, who visited the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to conduct propaganda sports events with Ukrainian children.
“This Ukrainian sanctions package should be a signal to others in the world – a signal that we cannot simply turn a blind eye to supporting aggression. When Ukrainians are forbidden from even remembering the victims of Russian aggression at the Olympics, this is definitely a global setback from justice. We will restore justice”, – the president emphasized.
The National Security and Defense Council supported the proposals of the Security Service of Ukraine to introduce these restrictions, and the Cabinet of Ministers, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Bank and other state bodies were tasked with ensuring their implementation and monitoring of effectiveness, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should inform international partners and initiate the application of similar sanctions in the European Union and USA.
