Pro-Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that the Ukrainian Olympic team may become the first in the history of modern games to receive a relaxation under the anti-doping rules of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). Such an initiative is supposedly aimed at helping Ukrainian athletes deal with stress caused by the war in Ukraine. When reporting this, propagandists refer to the relevant material allegedly from the French newspaper Le Monde and add a screenshot of the article as “evidence”.

However, this is fake. In fact, Le Monde has never published such material. By entering the title of the article in English, which is distributed by propagandists, in a Google search engine: “Paris Olympics: WADA prepares a draft of anti-doping relaxations for Ukraine national team”, one can be sure that neither the Le Monde newspaper nor any other publication published relevant material. In addition, the Le Monde website has a separate section about the Olympic Games, and there is also no article about anti-doping exemptions for the Ukrainian Olympic team. One cannot find information about “helping Ukrainian athletes combat stress” on the official website of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency).

With this fake, propagandists are trying to discredit the Ukrainian Olympic team on the eve of the competition. Let us recall that not all Russian and Belarusian Olympic athletes were allowed to participate in the games in Paris, since in one way or another they expressed support for the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. Despite this, some of them were still admitted to the Olympics - they will compete under a “neutral” flag.