The Ukrainian national team will not participate in the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Italy. Ukrainian media reported this on Sunday, March 15, in reference to the country’s National Paralympic Committee.
The reason for the boycott was the presence of representatives of Russia and Belarus at the ceremony. Reports said that previously, Ukrainians did not participate in the opening ceremony of the competition RIA Novosti.
The closing ceremony of the Games will take place on March 15 in Cortina d’Ampezzo and will start at 22:30 Moscow time.
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ukrainian Ministry of Youth and Sports published a joint statement that their officials would boycott the Paralympics if the organizers did not reconsider the decision to accept Russians and Belarusians as national symbols. Later, the IPC’s public relations director, Craig Spence, said that the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee had not provided any evidence to support its claims of discrimination and the IPC’s alleged special loyalty to representatives of the Russian Federation and Belarus.