MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has fulfilled the financial requirements set by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on December 5 to reinstating Russia’s membership and paid $15 million in full, the ROC said in a press release on Thursday.

"On December 5, 2017, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee set the criteria required to be fulfilled for reinstating the Russian Olympic Committee," the ROC’s statement reads.

"One of them is to pay $15 million for the development of the international anti-doping system and coordination of the activity in this area between the IOC, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and international sports federations. As of today, the ROC has paid this sum in full. Therefore, all the financial requirements set to the ROC for lifting the suspension have been fulfilled as of now," the statement says.

The IOC Special Commission chaired by Nicole Hoevertsz will present a report at a meeting of the Executive Board on February 24 on Russia’s fulfillment of its financial requirements. This decision is crucial to determine whether the Russian delegation will march under Russia’s flag at the Olympic Games’ closing ceremony at South Korea’s PyeongChang.

On December 5, the IOC Executive Board announced its decision to suspend the entire Russian national team from taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea’s PyeongChang over multiple doping abuse allegations.

The IOC, however, stated that doping-free athletes from Russia could go to the 2018 Olympic Games under the classification of neutral athletes, or the OAR status, which stands for ‘Olympic Athlete from Russia.’

After that, the IOC Invitation Review Panel, headed by Chairperson of the ITA (International Testing Agency) and France’s ex-sports minister, Valerie Fourneyron, picked out names of athletes from the list, whom the IOC later invited to the 2018 Olympic Games. The IOC Invitation Review Panel checked the Russian athletes for their compliance with the IOC’s admission criteria (the list included, in particular, the absence of anti-doping violations during an athlete’s entire sports career), after which the world Olympic body sent out individual invitations to the athletes for the 2018 Winter Games.

The approved list included 169 athletes but only 168 of them went to the Olympics (Russian speed skater Olga Graf refused to go to the 2018 Olympic Games).

The final list excluded a number of top Russian athletes, such as skier Sergei Ustyugov, biathlon athlete Anton Shipulin and short tracker Viktor Ahn.

The Olympic Games in South Korea’s PyeongChang will end on February 25.