The St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Committee (SVGOC) firmly condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The unprovoked violent actions of Russia against an independent Ukraine, its
legitimately, democratically elected government and its people is an abusive action against the fundamental principles of Olympism. We also condemn the role of Belarus in its active support of this
unprovoked and violent aggression against Ukraine.
We note that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has called for all sports bodies to move or cancel all sporting events planned to be held in Russia or Belarus. We support this call even as we acknowledge that it has been much too long in coming from this institution, as evidenced by past experiences. We also note that this is the third breach by Russia of the Olympic Truce in the last 14
years. Russia invaded Georgia during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games; they invaded and annexed Crimea shortly after the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics and now they have invaded Ukraine shortly before the Winter Para Olympics.
The SVGOC understands that it is desirable to separate politics and sports. However, we cannot pretend that sports are not part of life. The brutal attack by Russia, supported by Belarus, is an action that falls far outside the acceptable behaviour of a civilised country. We had hoped these types of violent actions
had been left to the history books. We believe that all of us in sports must stand united against this action taken by Russia and supported by Belarus. We find the attempted justifications for invasion by Russia to hark back to the days of European expansion and colonialism.
Ukraine is an independent nation and NOT a colony of Russia. We must stand up for Ukraine and its independent people.
We call on our fraternal sports organisations in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Caribbean and around the world to let their voices conjoin in the strongest possible condemnation of Russia for the current acts of violence toward Ukraine. We cannot allow Russia to be engaged in sporting activity
with the rest of the world as long as its brutish invasion of Ukraine persists.