US Sailing Releases Statement About Ukraine
March 22, 2022
WORLDWIDE一 On March 1, US Sailing announced their plans to suspend the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes, teams, and Race Officials from participating in US Sailing events.
The suspension backs policies and actions taken by the International Olympic Committee and World Sailing in support of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian sailing community.
On Feb. 24, Russian forces invaded Ukraine through air, land, and sea, leading a bombing campaign through the country and forcing the mass exodus of almost two million refugees.
Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the attack by claiming Russia was unsafe and faced an immediate threat from modern Ukraine, saying that Ukraine was under the control of a puppet Nazi government.
The conflict has continued for several weeks while the international community looks for ways to impede Russia from moving forward.
Many international sports communities have come out to support the Ukrainian people. However, Russian athletes and sports affiliates have been banned from participating in events, including the International Paralympic Committee, and Russia has been banned from hosting the Champions League final.
Aside from isolation from the international community, the European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada have cut off key Russian banks from the international Swift payment network, shut off their airspace to Russian airlines, and imposed personal sanctions on Putin and several other members of government.
US Sailing and the international sailing community are calling for an end to the violence and hostility in Ukraine.
US Sailing will continue to monitor the situation concerning adapting to policies in the future.
The war in Ukraine must be stopped by an international coalition NOW to prevent a global catastrophe. Ukraine and Russia are the two worst countries in the world to be at war from a global food standpoint. Together they are more than 24 % of the world’s wheat, and much more than half of sunflower and safflower oil production, and enormous amounts of the fertilizer required for crop yields worldwide(1). Moreover Russia and Ukraine cannot ship wheat due to sanctions or blockade. Critical planting season is approaching for what is or may soon be a war zone. This is coming on top of exceptional to extreme droughts in California, in the US grain belt(2), crop failure due to too much rain in Canada’s grain belt, and reports that China’s winter wheat crop will be the worst in history. Unless this war is put to a stop now, a man-made catastrophe with unforeseen knock on effects is coming for the world.