{"id":898068,"date":"2026-09-19T19:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T19:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898068\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T19:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T19:16:17","slug":"nhl-top-star-facing-backlash-after-supporting-putins-party-in-russian-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898068\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL top star facing backlash after supporting Putin\u2019s party in Russian elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

NHL top star facing backlash after supporting Putin\u2019s party in Russian elections<\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

Russian NHL hockey star Alexander Ovechkin is facing a wave of criticism after appearing in an election ad for President Vladimir Putin\u2019s United Russia party.<\/p>\n

A video released ahead of Russia\u2019s parliamentary elections<\/a> this weekend shows the hockey star endorsing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is one of the political heavyweights among the party\u2019s candidates, as Lavrov warns Moscow\u2019s enemies to \u201cexpect no mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ovechkin, who captains the Washington Capitals, said he had felt no hesitation about appearing in the ad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Russian. I support my country,\u201d he told reporters at a news conference on Thursday, adding that he expects to retire to Russia once his NHL career is over. \u201cI\u2019m gonna live there, my kids are gonna live there. I\u2019m for peace and love and I hope everything\u2019s going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video, and Ovechkin\u2019s subsequent statements, have sparked harsh criticism in Europe, the United States and Canada, which is part of the NHL.<\/p>\n

Latvia announced on Thursday that it has banned Ovechkin from entering the country. In the same statement, the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was also banning Umar Kremlev, the Kremlin-connected businessman who reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund parts of Donald Trump Jr.\u2019s wedding celebration<\/a> in the Bahamas. President Donald Trump on Friday claimed his son had paid back<\/a> the Russian billionaire.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which represents the roughly 1.3 million Canadians who identify as Ukrainian, called for Ovechkin to be sanctioned and banned from entering Canada, calling him \u201ca disgusting supporter of Russia\u2019s genocidal war against Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) sent a letter to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman saying it was \u201cincredibly alarming\u201d that Ovechkin had shown public support for \u201cthe party of war criminal Putin.\u201d He called on the league to review its policies.<\/p>\n

Russia denies allegations that it is committing war crimes in Ukraine despite the charges brought against Putin and other Russian officials by the International Criminal Court.<\/a><\/p>\n

Olga Saladukha, the head of the Ukrainian Athletics Federation, said in a statement the video illustrated why sport and politics cannot be separated when it comes to Russia. \u201cSport and athletes represent in the Russian Federation \u2013 yet another element of the state, state propaganda, militarism and imperial delusions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And NHL Hall of Fame goaltender Dominik Hasek posted on X that Ovechkin \u201cbears a significant share of responsibility through his public stance\u2026 for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Ukrainians and Russians killed or maimed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A difficult situation\u2019<\/p>\n

Alongside Ovechkin, the video features an array of Kremlin propagandists, including the editor-in-chief of state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, and the film star and staunch Putin supporter Vladimir Mashkov, best known for the 2001 movie \u201cBehind Enemy Lines\u201d and 2011\u2019s \u201cMission: Impossible \u2013 Ghost Protocol.\u201d Mashkov has been sanctioned in Europe over his backing for Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The Washington Capitals said in a statement Ovechkin had been asked to film the video while he was in Russia for the summer. Capitals \u2060general manager \u200bChris Patrick told ESPN that Ovechkin had not told the team about the filming. \u201cI would say it\u2019s a difficult situation, and I understand why people are upset,\u201d Patrick was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin is one of the NHL\u2019s most decorated players. He has been captain of the Washington Capitals for 16 seasons and had his multi-million contract with the team renewed for another season in July.<\/p>\n

He became the NHL\u2019s all-time top scorer in April 2025, receiving a personal congratulatory message from Putin. He then scored his record 900th goal last November, a month after turning 40.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin\u2019s friendship with Putin is no secret \u2013 his Instagram profile photo is a snap with the Russian leader and he has previously campaigned for him. But he has adopted a more careful tone since the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He previously said he had \u201clots of friends in Russia and Ukraine\u201d and hoped the war would be over soon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL top star facing backlash after supporting Putin\u2019s party in Russian elections Russian NHL hockey star Alexander Ovechkin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[241714,64,63,4268,166026,575,45053,85,190276],"class_list":["post-898068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-alexander-ovechkin","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-election","tag-house-spider","tag-nhl","tag-putin","tag-sports","tag-window"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}