The comments of Estonia's WRC broadcast on Nikolai Gryazin

As stated in the video, to this day, Nikolai Gryazin has not made a single statement condemning the war. Many of his copatriotes - musicians, sportsmen, artists, chose to do so. Most notably and relevantly for us, Alexey Lukyanuk. This despite the risk of doing so. For Russian rally fans, he will be the person to follow, hence his statements have more weight than those of the ordinary citizen. His position gives him responsibility and power, one which he has chosen to ignore in blissful comfort.

And why shouldn't he, indeed, with so many in our communities coming to his rescue any time any one dares to comment on his silence?

Russian athletes still carry the flag, despite not officially doing so. The notion of an "Authorised Neutral Athlete" was created *for* Russia. It is synonymous with their athletes and is evident to not change anything. Gryazin is still referred to as a Russian athlete (with the white-blue-red flag!) on Red Bull's page. The inclusion of Robert Shwartzman (despite his Israeli license) at Ferrari is hailed as the achievement of a Russian athlete in Russian media. After the Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak was allowed to participate neutrally at the Doha World Cup, he chose to wear the letter Z on his chest during the podium ceremony, stating he would gladly do it again. Next to the Ukrainian gymnast, who had won.

This need not be classified as Russophobia or racism. I will not hide my personal deep hatred towards Russia for what they are doing now and what they have done to my country in the past. But money and glory do not see ethnicity or skin colour. Any sports fans, that deem themselves moral people, should stand up to blood-soaked money in the sports they love. Be it Russian rally drivers, petrostates owning entire football clubs, hell, go and stand up for the rights of Iraqis against US athletes if you so wish. But do not sit with blindfolds and ignore your own conscience for the sake of a bit of entertainment.

This was uploaded to be able to be posted on r/formula1.