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Nearly four years after Russia violated the Olympic truce by invading Ukraine just days after the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, the UN is urging all nations to respect the truce this time.
The plea was made Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, saying a cessation of fighting during one of the world’s biggest sporting events can be “a tool to promote peace, dialogue, tolerance and reconciliation” ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games.
The resolution’s adoption by consensus at the 193-nation world body was greeted with applause from diplomats, the International Olympic Committee and sports representatives.
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A crew member jumps to fix a logo for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics before a launch ceremony to reveal the motto of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, Friday, Sept. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The Italian Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee of the Winter Olympic Games, presented the resolution.
“At a time of growing discord and conflict, sport and the Olympic Games can provide a ray of hope, an alternative to rivalry and division,” he said.
The resolution recalled the ancient Greek tradition of ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, to foster a peaceful environment and ensure the safe passage and participation of athletes in the games, “thus mobilizing the youth of the world toward the cause of peace.”
International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry told the assembly just before the resolution’s adoption that in a world where “conflict and division continue to cause untold suffering,” the Olympic Games “can offer a rare space where people meet not as adversaries but as human beings.”
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He said the Olympic Truce is “a call to put aside what divides us and focus instead on what unites us.”
But he emphasized that athletes cannot do this alone.
Coventry urged all countries to “keep sport and politics separate” and ensure athletes are not denied visas for politically motivated reasons. He said that athletes “should not be judged by their origin, but by their sporting merits.”
Coventry’s insistence on not denying visas comes weeks after a global controversy when the Indonesian government denied visas to Israel’s national gymnastics team for the World Gymnastics Championships in Jakarta. As a result, the IOC recommended that no international competitions be held in Indonesia and ended all discussion of the country hosting future Olympic Games.
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina and Milan will take place from February 4 to 26.
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Russia has violated the Olympic Truce three times in 14 years, waging war with Georgia over the disputed territory of South Ossetia during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and launching a military takeover that annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula after the closure of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, before violating it again in 2022.
Russia was banned from competing in the Paris Olympics in 2024 due to the timing of the invasion of Ukraine. However, the Russian athletes competed as neutrals and were allowed to attend the closing ceremony.
