After advancing to the semifinal at the Dubai Championships on Friday, Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev turned to a camera and wrote “No war please” on its lens.
In what can only be called true athlete activism, the seventh-ranked Rublev even noted the day before the match that his career is not important in light of his country’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
“In these moments, you realize that my match is not important. It’s not about my match, how it affects me,” Rublev said Thursday, according to ESPN. “What’s happening is much more terrible.
EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / Ukrainian servicemen pick up the body of a Ukrainian man who was shot when a Russian armoured vehicle drove past him, on a sidewalk in the north of Kyiv on February 25, 2022. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images)
“You realize how important (it) is to have peace in the world and to respect each other no matter what, to be united. It’s about that,” he added. “We should take care of our earth and of each other. This is the most important thing.”
Unlike the so-called activism of American athletes who have the comfort of “protesting” against their country, knowing full well that they will suffer no consequences, Rublev has risked his freedom by criticizing his homeland, Russia.
Russian strong man Vladimir Putin routinely jails those who stand in political opposition to Russia’s ruling class. And time and again, journalists who write critical stories about Russia mysteriously end up dead.
Rublev has risked severe consequences for his act of protest in Dubai could conceivably have put his life in danger for criticizing the attack on Ukraine.
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