The famous Ukrainian gymnast Oleg Vernyaev called a mistake a congratulation on the victory of Russian athletes at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Our compatriot noted that after the start of the full-scale war of the aggressor country against our state, the true position of athletes from the Russian Federation became clear.

Vernyaev stated this in an interview with NV, commenting on his action in Japan, when he wrote words of congratulations to the Russians on the social network Instagram. The winner of the games in Rio de Janeiro emphasized that he regrets it and would like to return the time back.

" We have such that we can congratulate someone on the victory, and it somehow automatically happened. But over time, we saw everything a little differently. It became clear who is who and what position should be occupied. There are people who stayed in the middle - neither there nor here. Like: “I just won’t speak out about either Ukraine or Russia.”. Even now there are many such athletes, and I personally know them. When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, I sat and thought: “If only I could turn back time.”. I admitted that I was wrong, ”said Vernyaev.

In 2020, Oleg received a large portion of criticism online after he refused to name Russia as the culprit of the war in Donbass.