When Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, reporters asked Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin for his thoughts. It was no secret, even then, that Ovechkin was close to Vladimir Putin. Years before, Ovechkin boosted the Russian president in a social media campaign and featured Putin in his own Instagram profile photo. “He is my president,” Ovechkin said of Putin shortly after the invasion. “But [like] I said, I’m not in politics, I’m an athlete.” That’s over. He’s in politics now.
“The thing about the video: I’m Russian,” Ovechkin told reporters Thursday. The video in question is one he taped for United Russia, a group supporting Putin, ahead of parliamentary elections. Ovechkin appears in the video alongside Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled media outlet RT, and others. “I’m for peace and love, and I hope, in the world, it doesn’t matter who you are,” Ovechkin told reporters. “I hope everybody understands everybody wants peace, and everybody hope everything’s going to be OK in the world.”
