No cross-country photos in the German snow, but images of destroyed buildings and people sheltering in Ukraine since one day filling the Instagram account of top biathlete Erik Lesser.
The 33-year-old German has a large group of Russian fans and uses it to show Russians “real news” from Ukraine. He has lent his social media account to a fellow Ukrainian sports star.
“I wondered: what can I do?” says Lesser in an interview with the German channel ZDF, between the World Cup competitions this weekend in Kontiolahti, Finland. At home he has packed some medicines and diapers to send to Ukraine, but he thinks he can reach most of it through social media.
Favorite of the Russians
The two-time world champion is not only known in Germany, where biathlon is a very popular sport, but also in Russia. He owes this to an action at the beginning of this year. When his Russian competitor Latypov tested positive for corona before a competition in Germany and had to quarantine for two weeks, Lesser lent him a bicycle, shoes and pants so that he could continue training. This allowed the Russian to try to appear somewhat fit at the start of the Olympic Games.
It earned Lesser many thanks and thousands of Russian followers. In the media he was dubbed “darling of the Russians”. He now hopes to convince them of the futility of the war in Ukraine.
“I have 30,000 Russian followers on Instagram. And I believe that the Russian people do not know exactly what is happening in Ukraine,” Lesser refers to the current censorship in the country.
Instead of posting messages himself, he contacted a Ukrainian fellow biathlete. “If I post something myself, nobody will believe it. But if I can get a Ukrainian athlete to take over my account for 24 hours, that’s very neat.”
Smashed rocket
And so, since one day, 27-year-old Anastasia Merkuschina has been posting photos and videos on Lesser’s account. “In information wars it’s hard to find the truth, so I asked my friends to send me pictures they took,” she writes under her first post. What follows are images of houses in ruins, a smashed rocket, a burning tank. And a photo of Ukrainian biathlete Bogdan Tsymbal, in a sleeping bag on a basement floor with a baby on his stomach.
Merkuschina also addresses her Russian colleagues, who have so far been silent about the war. “I am addressing the athletes, you know exactly what is happening and you are silent, your silence costs dozens of lives.”
Boycott
No Russians and Belarusians participated in the games in Finland this weekend. Initially, the World Biathlon Association IBU had banned them from competing under their own flag, after which the teams from both countries decided to boycott the World Cup competitions. They are now no longer allowed to participate from the IBU.
Also biathletes from Ukraine were not present. Two of them, former world champion Dmytro Pidrutschnji and Olympic relay champion Julia Dschima, are currently fighting in their home countries, according to German media. Earlier this week, the IBU reported that 19-year-old biathlete Yevhen Malyshev was killed in the war.
Merkuschina states on Lesser’s Instagram account that many Russian athletes will also be called up to join the fight. She therefore thinks it is misplaced that the Russians complained that they were banned from the biathlon competitions. “You are outraged by the ban, but how can you enter competitions when your country is holding machine guns against the heads of our relatives and friends,” Merkuschina writes.
