NHL superstar Ovechkin ‘was asked’ to film Putin ad, team says

Russian sports icon joins prominent domestic figures promoting the ruling United Russia party ahead of elections.

The Washington Capitals ice hockey team has deflected criticism of star Alex Ovechkin’s appearance in a campaign video for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.

A spokesperson for the Capitals said that their National Hockey League (NHL) record-setting goal scorer had been “asked by his country to participate”.

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Ovechkin, a longtime Putin supporter who spends his offseasons in Moscow, is among a group of prominent Russians shown in a campaign video for the ruling United Russia party ahead of nationwide elections this week.

The statement added: “This summer, while in Russia, he was asked by his country to participate in a video campaign. As the longest-tenured athlete in Washington, DC, 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”.

While Ovechkin’s appearance comes as no surprise following similar endorsements of Putin in the past, it has drawn criticism as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags through its fifth year.

Putin’s United Russia is widely expected to retain its majority in the State Duma following this week’s tightly controlled parliamentary elections, but the vote is seen by the Kremlin as a barometer of public opinion on the war with Ukraine, which killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Ovechkin founded the “PutinTeam” social movement in 2017 to support the Russian president in the following year’s election and uses a photo of himself with Putin on his official Instagram page.

But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ovechkin issued a plea for “no more war”, adding: “He’s my president, but … I’m not in politics.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin greets captain Alex Ovechkin during an award ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 27, 2014 [File: Alexei Druzhinin/Ria Novosti/Kremlin/Reuters]

As the war escalated in 2023, a group of Capitals fans protested outside the team’s Capital One Arena, calling for Ovechkin to remove photos of Putin from his Instagram profile.

Czech former ice hockey star Dominik Hasek, a longtime Putin critic, commented on X that the statement “ignores the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Ukrainians and Russians killed or maimed – casualties for which Ovechkin bears a significant share of responsibility through his public stance”.

Ovechkin, who turns 41 on Thursday, has scored an NHL record 929 goals in 1,573 games.

In July, he signed a one-year contract worth $4.25m to return for a 22nd season with the Washington Capitals and has refused to commit to this being his final campaign.