Paris hosts peaceful pre-Olympic protest to honor fallen Ukrainian athletes

• The Union of Ukrainians of France led a peaceful march in Paris to honor the fallen Ukrainian athletes.
• The event was held in the run-up to the upcoming Olympic Games.
• The ongoing war, human losses, and widespread destruction of sports facilities threaten Ukraine’s edge in Olympic sports.

In a powerful tribute to the hundreds of Ukrainian athletes who have perished since the Russian invasion of their homeland, the Union of Ukrainians of France led several hundred people in a peaceful march in Paris on Saturday.

Held in the run-up to this month’s Olympic Games, the demonstration aimed to honor these fallen sports heroes and highlight the ongoing impact of the conflict on Ukraine’s athletic community.

Since 2022, several hundred athletes — including some who competed at elite levels — plus coaches and other individuals closely involved in professional and amateur sports in Ukraine, have been killed in the full-scale invasion, with some serving as soldiers on the front lines.

The human losses, ongoing war, and widespread destruction of sports facilities threaten to erode Ukraine’s edge, both at the Paris Games opening on July 26 and in the future as a powerhouse of Olympic sport following the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

“What is tragic today is that we have hundreds of Ukrainian athletes who will unfortunately not have the chance to come to the Olympic Games in Paris because the Russian Federation senselessly killed them,” said Volodymyr Kogutyak, vice president of the French Ukrainian association. “Some were killed fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces, but many others were simply killed as civilians.”

Among those being remembered is Maksym Halinichev, a promising boxer who won a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018 and was the junior European champion in 2017. Halinichev joined the Ukrainian army and was killed at the front in March 2023 at the age of 22. Other notable athletes include Ivan Bidnyak and Yehor Kikhitov, both pistol shooters and members of the Ukrainian national team. Bidnyak won a silver medal at the European Championships in Osijek in 2013.

They also commemorate Stanislav Hulenkov, a 22-year-old judoka, whose body was identified only 10 months after his death, and Oleksandr Peleshenko, a weightlifter who represented Ukraine at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Anastasiia Ihnatenko, an acrobatic gymnastics coach, died in a Russian missile strike along with her husband and their 18-month-old son.

Scores of participants attended the event, including Ukrainians, French citizens, and people from various other backgrounds, all united in their grief and determination to honor the athletes’ memories. Participants wore T-shirts displaying the names of the deceased athletes, and organizers observed a minute of silence, followed by delivering speeches.

“These athletes were killed at a time when they could have been training to be chosen for the Olympic Games. That is significant. Russia did not give them the choice to train and go to Paris. That is the sad part,” Kogutyak emphasized.

Ukraine earned its smallest haul of 11 medals at the 2016 Rio Games as an independent nation, dropping to a low of 22nd in the country rankings. Ukraine rebounded to 16th place at the pandemic-delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, but only one of its 19 medals was gold — marking another new low.

“The peaceful protest also served a political purpose, aiming to send a clear message regarding the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the upcoming Paris Games. Kogutyak declared, ‘The protest is to loudly and clearly state that the Belarusian and Russian athletes, regardless of what flag or colors they come to Paris under, are not welcome.”

.He further expressed sadness that various ministries had decorated some of those Russian athletes and that they had met President Vladimir Putin. The ongoing war’s human toll, coupled with the widespread destruction of sports facilities in Ukraine, poses a severe threat to the country’s future in Olympic sports. The loss of these athletes robs the nation of its current talents and jeopardizes its sporting future.

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