Ukraine’s Paralympic team banned by IPC from wearing “political” uniform with map of Ukraine

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The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has decided to ban Ukrainian athletes from wearing uniforms with a map of Ukraine at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Italy, the president of the National Paralympic Committee, Valeriy Sushkevych, said in an interview with ukrinform.ua.

“We prepared our sports, no – not even sports, but dress uniforms for our team. The International Paralympic Committee said: ‘No, no, no – this won’t do!’ They said this uniform is political. And they said that no one will allow us to compete in such uniforms. This uniform was very beautiful, very symbolic, and very accentuatedly ‘shouted’ about the existence of Ukraine in the world, in Europe, with all its territories without russian occupation,” he noted.

According to the president of the NPC, the uniform was designed by one of the leading Ukrainian designers, Viktor Anisimov, who had previously worked on the uniform for the Ukrainian team for the Paralympics in Paris-2024.

Due to the ban on the original uniforms, new ones had to be urgently made and sent by bus to Italy, where the team is already located.

“And now we were more radical. Our radicalism is explained by the fact that after Paris, this escalation of loyalty to ‘rasha’ happened with new force, a new wave. That is, there are already subjects of Paralympic bureaucracy sitting there who are watching to ensure that Ukraine does not declare itself as a country without occupation and that it will fight in such a uniform against the aggressor country,” added Sushkevich.