Before the opening of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Russian state media consistently highlighted the organizers’ problems. Reports by Argumenty i Fakty, VGTRK and NTV said some venues were unfinished, the city was paralyzed by traffic, and the Olympic Village was too modest. In reports aired on Vesti on January 15 and February 6, Asya Emelyanova claimed that only 42% of the facilities were ready by the start of the Games, that 10,000 tickets for the opening ceremony remained unsold, and that some sites were operating despite defects and piles of trash.
On opening day, February 6, Channel One did not cover the ceremony and instead aired a film about the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Its news coverage focused on unrest in Milan, where demonstrators protested the participation of Israeli and American athletes, environmental damage and social grievances. On Rossiya-1, Olga Skabeeva said the Games were already engulfed in scandals, including one involving the Norwegian team, whose members and coach were suspended over equipment-related accusations.
Because only 13 Russian athletes are competing under neutral status, pro-government outlets devoted much of their attention to participants from other countries. NTV separately stressed the record number of openly LGBT competitors, putting the figure at 46. Russian media also wrote about freestyler Elise Lundholm, French biathlete Julie Simon and German bobsledder Lisa Buckwitz, claiming she posts explicit material on OnlyFans without providing proof. The athlete herself said she does not intend to appear nude.
Ukrainian athletes became a separate target. Yevgeny Popov, a host on “60 Minutes,” described figure skater Kyrylo Marsak’s stance as a “tantrum” after Marsak said Russian athletes should not be allowed to compete even as neutrals. He had earlier argued that many of them support the war. Popov also discussed skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who wore a helmet bearing images of Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia; he was later disqualified for refusing to remove it.
On February 14, the outlet Championat published an article headlined “Gumennik’s medal was stolen.” Russian figure skater Petr Gumennik, competing as a neutral, finished sixth, missing the podium by just over three points. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, citing the opinion of his wife Tatyana Navka, said the skater could have placed in the top three if the judges had treated him differently.
At the same time, Z-channels spread fake claims about the Olympics. Current Time found several fabricated videos and posts, ranging from alleged isolation of the Ukrainian team and confiscation of its passports to a story about elite hotel bookings worth 8 million euros. As the outlet noted, neither CBC News, nor BFM TV, nor the independent media outlet Agentstvo had published such reports. The article concludes by noting that Russian media contrast Milan with Sochi, even though the 2014 Olympics in Russia also faced venue-readiness problems, and those Games cost more than $51 billion, while the Italian Olympics, according to the cited estimate, cost about 6 billion euros.