Judo Has Become Russia's Route Back Into International Sport
The International Judo Federation fully reinstated Russian athletes under their national flag in November 2025. EU officials in Brussels are now weighing countermeasures, including athlete sanctions and cutting EU funds to federations.
Russia's push to regain a place in world sport ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is becoming more visible, and the clearest example is judo, the favorite sport of Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Politico Europe, the International Judo Federation (IJF) became the first major sports organization to fully reinstate Russian athletes in November 2025, allowing them to compete under the national flag for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Concern in Brussels
In a European External Action Service document dated Sept. 16 and seen by Politico, EU foreign policy officials discuss possible steps against Russian reintegration. These include sanctions on athletes, withholding EU money from federations that welcome Russia back, visa restrictions for athletes competing under national colors, and pressure on broadcasters and sponsors. The officials also want to draw like-minded countries such as Britain, Norway and Switzerland into a wider coalition. The paper says sport has increasingly become a tool of political instrumentalisation by Russia and Belarus.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has deferred its decision on flags, anthems and team colors to a later, unspecified moment. It says that outside the Olympic Games, each international federation decides the question. Politico reports that IOC president Kirsty Coventry is tacitly seen as backing a Russian return in 2028.
Putin's ties to judo
Putin is himself a judoka, and the sport has long been linked to Russia's political and business elite. Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, Putin's childhood training partners, won major state contracts, including for the Crimean Bridge. Arkady Rotenberg sat on the IJF executive committee from 2013 to 2022. The federation has been led since 2007 by Austrian-Romanian executive Marius Vizer. Vitalii Dubrova, head coach of the Ukrainian national judo team, criticizes him for promoting Russians, while the IJF did not comment on Vizer's ties to Russia. In 2022 the federation argued that athletes should not be punished for government actions.
