Alexander Ovechkin faces backlash over Putin campaign ad

NHL star Alexander Ovechkin is facing criticism for an appearance in a campaign advertisement promoting Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the country’s elections this weekend.

The episode is just the latest in Ovechkin’s longstanding support for the Russian leader, who has earned widespread condemnation from the international community for crimes against humanity going back years, most recently in connection with the ongoing war he is waging in Ukraine.

The advertisement at the center of the controversy this week came the same month Ovechkin begins what is expected to be the final season of his career with the Washington Capitals.

In the ad, published in pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Ovechkin appears with several other prominent Russian athletes, celebrities and politicians under the title “when we are united, we are invincible.”

The National Hockey League’s all-time goal scorer, Ovechkin lives in Russia in the offseason, and his ties to Putin have been well documented during the Russian president’s years in office.

The Capitals, in a statement to The Athletic this week, sought to distance the club from the ad and argued its star player appeared in it on his own behalf.

“Alex Ovechkin is a Russian citizen who lives in Moscow with his family during the offseason and will live there following his retirement,” a team spokesperson told the outlet. “This summer, while in Russia, he was asked by his country to participate in a video campaign. As the longest-tenured athlete in Washington, D.C. and a pillar of the community, his focus and ours is on the season ahead and the continued impact he makes on the ice and in our city.”

The ad and the Capitals response to it was met with widespread backlash in the United States and around the world, including from some fellow hockey greats on social media.

“Everyone in this photograph has chosen to officially support Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine,” legendary goaltender Dominik Hašek, an Olympian on the Czech national team, wrote on X, attaching a photo of the ad shoot with a red square around Ovechkin’s face. “Because of each of them, many Ukrainians and Russians will be killed.”

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) on Wednesday penned a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman demanding an investigation into Ovechkin’s appearance and asked the league to clarify its policies on players appearing in foreign political promotions.

“It is incredibly alarming that [NHL] and [The Capitals] have allowed Alexander Ovechkin to appear in a campaign advertisement supporting the party of war criminal Putin,” the Republican lawmaker wrote. “American hockey fans deserve better leadership from their star players.”

Ovechkin has a long history of ties to Putin.

He started the political movement “PutinTeam” in 2017 and maintains a close personal relationship with the Russian leader.

Ovechkin’s Instagram profile as of Wednesday includes a photo of himself and the Russian leader together and the two reportedly speak regularly.

The Capitals winger has dismissed concerns about his relationship with Putin in the past, and generally spoken against war around the world, though he has stopped short of criticizing Putin directly.

It is unclear if Ovechkin feels pressure to support Putin for fear of retribution, but the Russian president has cracked down on prominent dissidents in sports, arts and media in the past during his time atop the country.

The former New York Rangers star Artemi Panarin, for example, was hit with assault allegations in Russian media in 2021 after he spoke out against the Kremlin.

Ovechkin’s brand is among the largest of any Russian athlete in the world, and he has a number of business interests in the country, including a deal struck last year with Russian streaming platform Kinopoisk to produce a documentary series or movie about his life and career.

“Let’s be clear. Putin is a dictator and his regime has held what a lot of independent people think are fraudulent elections and committed a lot of atrocities around the world,” commented longtime D.C. sports columnist Barry Svrluga during an appearance on 106.7 The Fan. “Now, I do think it’s complicated for Ovechkin who is among the most famous and well-known people in Russia who wants to move back and raise his family there.”

The NHL star’s decision to embrace Putin could negatively impact the way he is remembered after his retirement, some observers say.

“With this doubling down on his longstanding embrace of Vladimir Putin, Ovechkin forever stains his athletic legacy,” said Thomas Melia, chair of the board of the Free Russia Foundation, a pro-democracy group. “This disgraceful choice is reminiscent of the fall from public esteem of Charles Lindberg, whose aviation heroics were forever overshadowed by his later embrace of Hitler and the Nazi party.”

Others see the endorsement of a famous athlete who plays for a marquee franchise in the United States as important to Putin’s bid to legitimacy with the West and shore up support in Russia ahead of this weekend’s elections.

“Political leaders often surround themselves with celebrities to borrow some of the celebrities’ support and glamor,” said Peter Loge, professor of communication at George Washington University. “Athletes like Ovi can help a leader project strength, it’s a way of saying ‘he is strong and a national hero, therefore I am strong and a national hero.”