Paris 2024 Olympics: Vladimir Putin ready to discuss an Olympic truce in Ukraine

A ceasefire “will be requested” from Russia during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (July 26-September 8), Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday March 16 in an interview with the Ukrainian television channel TSN. “We are ready to consider all proposals,” declared Vladimir Putin, re-elected President of Russia on Sunday, during a speech to the press when he raised the subject of an Olympic truce in the war which has pitted Moscow against Kiev for more than two years. “We are in favor of peace talks, but they should not be organized simply because our adversary is running out of ammunition,” he said, however, as reported by Tass, the state news agency.

Inspired by the ancient Greek tradition of "ekecheiria", which required the cessation of all hostility during the ancient Olympic Games, this "truce" was reintroduced by the United Nations in 1993, at the initiative of the International Olympic Committee ( IOC).

In November 2023, the UN General Assembly already called on all countries in the world to respect this traditional Olympic truce on the occasion of the Paris Olympics. The resolution, prepared by France, urged member states to “observe the Olympic Truce individually and collectively” from the seventh day before the start of the event and until the seventh day after the end of the Paralympic Games, i.e. from the 19 July to September 15. The text was adopted by 118 votes in favor and zero votes against. Only two states abstained: Russia and Syria.

Adopted every two years before the Winter and Summer Games, this Olympic truce is not respected. For example, the IOC considers Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as a violation of the Olympic truce linked to the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The committee therefore recommended that international federations ban their competitions from Russian soil and ban any official Russian symbol - anthem or flag.

As for the participation of Russian athletes in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games under a neutral banner, Emmanuel Macron recalled that “the choice that was made is that Russia, as a country, is not present and that the flag is not present, but that athletes could, in fact, be present.

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To participate, these athletes, who will only compete as individuals, must also not have actively supported the Russian offensive in Ukraine. This measure also concerns Belarusian athletes. A treatment deemed “humiliating” and “discriminatory” by the master of the Kremlin.