Aleksander Lesun doesn’t remember much about the Soviet Union, but that’s where he was born in 1988, three years before its collapse. It’s still the country listed in his passport.
Growing up in Belarus in the 1990s, much of his formative years was spent looking back for inspiration, back to the days of Soviet sporting achievement.
Sometimes he even felt jealous listening to the stories of how things used to be for athletes as he dreamed of one day becoming an Olympic champion too.
Sport was a huge priority for the USSR, but newly formed post-Soviet countries such as Belarus could not afford the same investment. For Lesun, trying to make it as a young sportsperson meant struggling for survival. When the chance to switch to representing Russia came up in 2009, he jumped at it, not only because it meant better funding.
“I was proud to compete under the Russian flag,” the 33-year-old says. “My grandmother is Russian, I have a lot of relatives in Russia.
“Russia was always something dear to my heart, something strong, great. And I am not talking about politics or the army, I am talking about people, about natural beauty. I always felt connected to it.”
After 2009, Lesun won 14 World Championship medals for Russia in modern pentathlon, four of which were gold. In 2016 in Rio, he became Olympic champion.
In late February 2022, he decided never to compete for Russia again.
“I quit all my sports positions on 22 February and in two days all the events [in Ukraine] began,” he says.
“What did I feel? Can I use swear words in this interview? To say that I was shocked is to say nothing. I understood that the world would never be the same again.”
Lesun had no ‘plan B’. He describes his decision as impulsive. He had no other offers, nobody offering to fly him out of Russia. He has instead started another job not directly connected to sport.
He is one of very few Russian sportspeople to speak out against the war in Ukraine. Even fewer have taken the kind of action he has – removing himself from representing his country as a way of expressing opposition.
Speaking out is very risky and can have serious consequences. Thousands have been detained at anti-war protests. A new criminal law bans describing what the Russian government calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine as an invasion or war. Throughout our interview Lesun carefully avoids using those words.
“Before you might have been detained for 15 days for taking part in a ‘no war’ public protest. Now it can be up to three years. Or even 15 years for some other kinds of protest.”
This has a bearing on the number of public figures speaking out, and what they choose to say. Some, including tennis player Maria Sharapova, have limited themselves to an expression of hope for a peaceful resolution to what is termed “the crisis in Ukraine”.
Fellow Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev, the world number six, wrote ‘No war please’ on a TV camera lens after a match in Dubai in February. World number two Daniil Medvedev spoke of “promoting peace”. This was before the new law that can lead to up to 15 years in jail for spreading anything the authorities consider to be ‘fake news’ about the military. Most Russian sportspeople have stayed silent since.
Medvedev and Rublev have been able to continue playing as individuals under a neutral flag, while many international sports bodies have banned Russians from competing outright. There has been some recent discussion over whether Russians should be allowed to compete as neutrals in the UK, with sports minister Nigel Huddlestone saying players such as Medvedev should provide a “written declaration” that they are “genuinely neutral”.
Even if there is a larger number of Russian sportspeople who privately oppose the war in Ukraine, they fear the consequences of making that public. Doing so could make them a criminal in their native country. Some might fear reprisals against family members.
Source- BBC
