"Neither about Ukraine nor about Russia": Olympic champion Verniaiev confessed what he regrets the most

Famous Ukrainian gymnast Oleh Verniaiev called it a mistake to congratulate Russian athletes on their victory at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Our compatriot noted that after the start of the full-scale war of the aggressor country against our country, the true position of the Russian athletes became clear.

Verniaev said this in an interview with NV, commenting on his actions in Japan, when he wrote words of congratulations to the Russians on the social network Instagram. The winner of the Rio de Janeiro Games emphasized that he regretted it and would like to turn back the clock.

"I don't know. We have this thing where we can congratulate someone on a victory, and it somehow automatically happens. But later we saw things a little differently. It became clear who was who and what position we should take. Some people stayed in the middle – neither here nor there. Like: "I'm just not going to speak out about either Ukraine or Russia." Even now there are many such athletes, and I know them personally. When Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, I sat and thought: "It's time to turn back the clock". I recognized that I was wrong," Verniaiev said.

In 2020, Oleh received a large portion of criticism online after he refused to call Russia the culprit of the war in Donbas.

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