"Sucking up to Putin": State Duma calls for severe punishment for Isinbayeva who fled to Spain

State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov has demanded that legendary pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva be stripped of all her awards and titles after the Olympic champion moved to Spain. The official called the former athlete an anti-patriot of Russia, although she had previously supported dictator Vladimir Putin.

Fedorov said this in an interview with Sport24. According to him, Isinbayeva completely destroyed her reputation by saying that she had no connection with the armed forces of the aggressor country and political movements, although she was a member of the Putin Team, is the face of the United Russia party, and was a member of the working group on constitutional amendments.

"In our country, the ideology of patriotism is prohibited. Accordingly, both athletes and other communities do not have this ideology from the very beginning. A person can be brought up as a patriot in a family. And then, so to speak, he or she can pretend to be a patriot for the sake of a career or money, etc. This is what we actually observed with Isinbayeva. She has been pretending to be a patriot for a long time. So to speak, she was sucking up to Putin. I believe that all these awards are based on patriotism, and she is an anti-patriot. Accordingly, she should not receive these awards," Fedorov said.

Earlier it became known that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not exclude Isinbayeva from its membership, despite her service in the Russian army and support for dictator Vladimir Putin. For its part, the team of politician Alexei Navalny published a photo of Yelena in Spain against the backdrop of the Ukrainian flag and an investigation into the Olympic champion's real estate in Europe.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Dagestan has invented a "terrible punishment" for Elena Isinbayeva, who fled to Spain, causing ridicule online.

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