Olympic champion Svetlana Zhurova was outraged by the behavior of Ukrainian figure skaters Violetta Serova and Ivan Khobta, who refused to shake hands with their rivals from Georgia because of their attitude toward Russia. The State Duma deputy expressed surprise at this act of our compatriots.

Zhurova said this in a commentary to the propaganda TV channel Match TV. The winner of the 2006 Turin Games, as is traditional for representatives of the aggressor country, accused Ukrainians of politicizing sports and absurdly expressed doubts that Serova and Khobta's actions were sincere.

"Ukraine will lead to the fact that people in sports will stop shaking hands. All the federations will eventually say: let's stop doing this so as not to create conflict situations. They will be forced to do so. It's absurd, the athletes play for Georgia but are perceived by the Ukrainian side as Russians. If a Ukrainian athlete shook hands with a Georgian athlete who had played for Russia in the past, the whole country would condemn him or her for it. It is clear that they will never shake hands," Zhurova said.

Earlier, a well-known Russian figure skating coach, Tatyana Tarasova, said "to hell with them" and demanded that Serova and Khobta be disqualified.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Ukrainian freestyle wrestler Valentyn Blesetskyi refused to shake hands with Russian representative Abasgadzhi Magomedov at the 2023 World Cup.

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