After the NHL star appeared in an ad campaign for United Russia, it’s fair to start pressing about the impact of his stances – even if he doesn’t want to talk about it.
W hen Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, reporters asked Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin for his thoughts. 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.
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.
A day before, the Capitals released a statement that lauded Ovechkin and treated his video participation in the same mundane, neutral tone.
Just one concrete example of the Putin government in action right in Ovechkin’s adopted home town. Elsewhere, on X, former NHL goaltender Dominik Hasek criticized the Capitals’ statement on Ovechkin for turning a blind eye to the impact of that politics in Europe.
For the Capitals, taking a moral stand could mean anything from making a donation to an Ukrainian charity to stripping Ovechkin of his captaincy, to barring him from playing.
After answering a couple of questions about the United Russia video, Ovechkin pivoted. When an ESPN reporter pressed him later with questions on the video and the invasion, Ovechkin said he is “not in politics” and “can’t say who’s right and who’s wrong” before abruptly ending the interview.