“We are preparing an official Russian-Chinese summit,” said Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday at a press conference at the start of the year in Moscow. It had previously been announced that Putin had accepted China’s invitation to the games.
Because of sanctions in response to state-organized doping, Russian athletes cannot officially compete for their country at the Winter Games from February 4 to 20 in Beijing, but only for the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
Unlike Russia, the US announced weeks ago that it would not send any official representatives to the games in China. Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand joined. The background is above all the human rights situation in the most populous country in the world.