TOKYO, August 14. /TASS/. Ukrainian athletes will be ready to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris only if Russian and Belarusian athletes are cleared to take part in next year’s Games as neutrals, Japan’s Kyodo news agency quoted Ukraine’s top sports official as saying on Monday.

"Our athletes need to be at the Olympics," Ukrainian Minister of Youth and Sports Vadim Gutzeit said in an interview with Kyodo.

The Ukrainian sports minister stressed that Ukraine would participate in next year’s Summer Olympics in Paris only if athletes from Russia and Belarus are allowed to compete strictly under a neutral status.

Paris is scheduled to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games between July 26 and August 11, 2024.

The National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ukraine repeatedly stated on previous occasions that it may opt to boycott the Paris Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes were cleared to compete.

The Ukrainian Youth and Sports Ministry announced its decision on April 18 to strip the country’s national sports federations of their licenses if athletes under their jurisdiction compete in the same international tournaments with athletes representing Russia and Belarus. However, the ministry later scrapped this decision, acknowledging that Russian and Belarusian athletes are entitled to compete in international tournaments but only under a neutral status.

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

At its session on January 25, 2023, the IOC Executive Board put forward a proposal to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status.