At the Milan Winter Olympics, athletes born in Russia or formerly part of Russian national teams are playing a visible role while representing other countries. According to calculations by Sport-Express, there are at least 37 such competitors, with figure skating accounting for a particularly large share: 21 out of 37.
After the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where Russians competed as the ROC team because of doping sanctions, the ban was expected to end on December 16, 2022, which would have allowed Russia to return under its flag in Paris. But after the war began, Russian athletes were barred from international events, and for some of them changing sporting citizenship became the only way to stay in the Olympic cycle.
The process usually requires meeting federation rules and serving a “quarantine” period of one to three years, although some cases allow accelerated naturalization. Figure skater Sofia Samodelkina, for example, obtained a Kazakh passport on a fast track. Some athletes had left before 2022, such as biathlete Anastasia Kuzmina, who has represented Slovakia since 2008 and has won three Olympic golds and three silvers for the country. Others moved only after February 2022.
In Russia, the reaction to such switches remains harsh. Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev called the choice “betrayal in its purest form” and supported stripping titles, banning training in Russia, and demanding compensation for training costs. Tatyana Tarasova disagreed, saying:
“Only idiots call them traitors.”
Several former Russian athletes have already won medals in Milan for their new teams. Anastasia Metelkina and Luka Berulava took silver in pairs skating, earning Georgia its first Winter Olympic medal in history. Nikita Volodin, born in St. Petersburg and granted German citizenship in autumn 2025, won bronze with Minerva Fabienne Hase. Speed skater Vladimir Semirunniy from Yekaterinburg claimed silver for Poland in the 10,000 meters; he announced his switch in December 2024 and received Polish citizenship in August 2025.
Some of these athletes also became flag bearers. Uzbekistan’s flag was carried by speed skater Daniil Eyborg, while Georgia chose ice dancers Gleb Smolkin and Diana Davis, who finished 11th and had earlier posted the anti-war message NO WAR!!!. After the Games, they said they had no intention of returning to Russia. Armenia entrusted its flag to figure skaters Karina Akopova and Nikita Rakhmanin, who produced the best Olympic result in the country’s history and were also forced to change the title of their short-program music at the IOC’s request after objections from the Azerbaijani side.