Ukraine officials will boycott the Milano Cortina Paralympics next month over the participation of a handful of Russian and Belarusian athletes cleared โto compete under their flags, Ukraineโs Sports Minister Matvii Bidnyi said on Wednesday (February 18, 2026).
Ukrainian athletes will still take part in the March 6-15 Paralympics but Mr. Bidnyi said no Ukraine official would be at the โ opening ceremony or any event of the Games, and he urged other countries to follow suit.
โIn response to the Paralympics organisersโ outrageous decision to let Russians and Belarusians (sic) compete under their national flags, Ukrainian officials will not attend the Paralympic Games,โ Mr. Bidnyi said on social media.
โWe will โnot be present at the opening ceremony. We will not take part in any other official Paralympic events. We thank every official from the free world who will do the same. We will keep fighting!โ
Russia and โBelarus will have a combined 10 para athletes at next monthโs Paralympics following Tuesdayโs (February 17) decision by the International Paralympic โCommittee.
Earlier, โ Mr. Bidnyi called the decision to allow six Russians and four Belarusians to participate in the Paralympics a โ sign of support for Russiaโs propaganda.
Both countries were banned from Paralympic competitions after Moscowโs 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but regained full membership rights in the IPC after member organisations voted in September 2025 to lift their partial suspensions.
Belarus was a key staging area for the invasion.
International federations for each sport on the Paralympic Games programme had said they would maintain โbans on athletes from those countries, but Russia and Belarus won an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in December against the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, earning a handful of spots.
Minister condemns decision
A limited number of Russians and Belarusians are competing as individual neutral athletes without flags or anthems at the ongoing Milano Cortina Winter Games, โwith the Olympic Committees of the two nations still sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.
โThe decision by the Paralympic organisers to allow killers and their accomplices to take part in the Paralympic Games under national flags is disappointing and outrageous,โ Mr. Bidnyi said.
Russia will have two spots in Para alpine skiing, two in โ Para cross-country skiing and two in Para snowboard while Belarus was awarded four slots in total, all in cross-country skiing – one male and three females.
โThe flags of Russia and Belarus have no place at international sporting events that stand for fairness, integrity, and โrespect. These are the flags of regimes that have turned sport into a tool of war, lies, and contempt,โ Mr. Bidnyi said.
Heraskevych speaks out
His comments come hours after Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from the Winter Olympics over a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war, criticised Games organisersโ decision to have a Russian volunteer carry a sign ahead of the Ukraine delegation at the opening ceremony.
The volunteer, a Russian living in Milan, had wanted to carry the sign because she condemned Russiaโs invasion and wanted to support Ukraine, according to local media.
โI donโt want to attack anyone personally, but overall, this โsituation with the Paralympic Committee, with the IOC, with the disqualification and with Russian flags, feels like the IOC is doing some campaign against the Ukrainian nation,โ Mr. Heraskevych told Reuters from Kiev.
The IOC said there was no discrimination against any nation or athlete at the Games. All decisions relating to Mr. Heraskevych were driven by the rules of the Olympic โ Charter that limit any expression on the fields of play, it said.
โWe asked them (all athletes) for that specific moment, that field of โ play moment to be free of any messages,โ IOC spokesman Mark Adams told the same press conference. โWe ask that from any country, from any athlete, from anywhere in the world,โ he said.
He said he was aware of the sign โbearer but added, โWe donโt closely vet all of our volunteers but a Russian volunteer carrying a sign, for me it is not an issue. Tell me differently.โ
Luca Casassa, Milano Games spokesman, told the press conference there were more than 1,200 volunteers at the opening ceremony. โThey worked to make the opening ceremony something unique. We cannot vet each and every volunteer,โ he said.