THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION INFORMATION ATTACKS AGAINST UKRAINE DURING THE XXXII SUMMER OLYMPIC AND XVI PARALYMPIC GAMES IN TOKYO 2020

Abstract

In today's globalized world, the Olympic and Paralympic Games have become highly politicized, and the assertion of «sport outside politics» causes more controversy and debate among spectators, researchers, journalists, organizers and competitors. In view of this, on the eve of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee allowed athletes to express their political views with certain restrictions. In the case of Ukraine, against which the Russian armed aggression continues, and the number of hybrid threats is constantly increasing, the performances of athletes, teams in the Olympic arenas, sport in general has become a critical area of bilateral and international relations.

The author has analyzed the most resonant (dis)information attacks, tendentious propaganda content, fakes of the Russian information space, related to the participation of representatives, athletes of the Ukrainian national team in the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020. Specifically, a joint photo of athlete J. Mahuchikh and a Russian athlete M. Lasitskene with the states’ national flags; provocation regarding the speech and photo of J. Beleniuk; an «incident» concerning the participation of these states’ delegations at the Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony; the refusal of runner I. Tsvietov to take a joint photo with Russian athletes; the reaction of the Russian media and social network users to the situation of the disqualification of a Malaysian athlete and Ukraine's involvement in it. It has been established that in Ukraine and Russia the cases at the Games, when Ukrainian athletes behaved differently during the awarding ceremony, being close to the Russian athletes, caused a wide public response. The author emphasizes that some Ukrainian athletes deliberately invested political intention in their actions, but some behaved purely emotionally and only later their actions got specific interpretation in political discussions. The conducted content analysis has given grounds to conclude that Russian propaganda purposefully creates a negative image of Ukrainian athletes, the leadership of domestic sports organizations, the authorities in general, in order to form a perception of incompetence, inexperience. The author has singled out the leading anti-Ukrainian slogans, emphasizing that in various cases the Russian mass media deliberately politicize or depoliticize the target audience.