The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Saturday voted to lift its partial suspension of Russia and Belarus, which had been in place since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The decision, taken at the IPC’s General Assembly in Seoul, paves the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their national flags at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympic Games.
However, participation in the six sports on the programme—para Alpine skiing, para cross-country skiing, para snowboarding, para biathlon, para ice hockey and wheelchair curling—remains subject to international federations, which continue to uphold bans on both countries. Athletes will only be eligible if they hold an active licence for the 2025/26 season issued by these federations.
The IPC had imposed the partial suspension in 2023, allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games under a neutral flag and with strict neutrality conditions. Both countries had previously been excluded from the Beijing 2022 Paralympics.
The ruling comes just over a week after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes would be permitted to participate at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, though only under neutral status and conditions of neutrality.
