{"id":899632,"date":"2026-09-17T21:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/899632\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T21:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T21:22:10","slug":"washington-capitals-captain-alex-ovechkin-defends-appearance-in-russian-election-video-for-vladimir-putins-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/899632\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin defends appearance in Russian election video for Vladimir Putin’s party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Capitals<\/a> captain Alex Ovechkin<\/a> addressed the media on Thursday at the opening of the team\u2019s training camp and talked about his decision to appear in a video for Russian president Vladimir Putin\u2019s United Russia party ahead of Sunday\u2019s parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old Moscow native said he supports his country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Russian,\u201d Ovechkin said. \u201cAs soon as I\u2019m done playing hockey, I\u2019m probably going to stay there. I\u2019m going to live there. My kids are going to live there, my family. I\u2019m for peace and love. I hope everything is going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ovechkin does not speak in the video, but can be seen standing among a group of about three dozen prominent Russian figures with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov addressing the camera. Asked about his participation in the video, Ovechkin said he was asked and agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked me to do this and I said yes, simple as that,\u201d Ovechkin said.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin has been a longtime and vocal supporter of Putin. In 2017, Ovechkin helped launch the \u201cPutinTeam,\u201d a group of influential Russian supporting Putin\u2019s 2018 re-election campaign. Upon Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ovechkin neither denounced, nor supported it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he\u2019s my president,\u201d Ovechkin answered after being asked about Putin\u2019s decision to invade. \u201cBut how I said, I\u2019m not in politics, I\u2019m an athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHL\u2019s all-time leading scorer with 929 goals, Ovechkin is set to enter his 22nd NHL season, joining Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> captain Sidney Crosby<\/a> and Corey Perry<\/a> of the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> in hitting that milestone this fall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin addressed the media on Thursday at the opening of the team\u2019s training camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[83990,712,43,44,41,39,42,40,113867],"class_list":["post-899632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alex-ovechkin-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8471214","tag-apple-news","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-washington-capitals-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}