Regular readers of insidethegames will know that IOC President Thomas Bach has been raising the topic at every opportunity for several months now.

But the latest confirmation seems to have made everyone aware of how serious Bach is about having athletes from Russia and Belarus represented in some form at next year’s Olympics in the French capital.

The IOC statement referred to the "unifying mission of the Olympic Movement … encouraging it to live up to this unifying mission, particularly in these times of division, confrontation and war."

It was no coincidence that the statement came less than 24 hours after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had spoken to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and during the call had asked for his help in ensuring that there were no athletes from Russia or Belarus at Paris 2024.

It was a metaphorical equivalent of the IOC sticking a middle finger in the face of Zelenskyy, who Bach had been happy to be photographed with in Kyiv last July during a meeting in which he promised Ukraine were "not alone with their troubles, we are on their side, we stand side by side with them and support them with our heart, soul, thoughts and deeds."

This morning, a few hours after the IOC statement was released, Russia launched a rush-hour barrage of missiles across Ukraine, killing at least 11 people in nearly a dozen regions across the country.

Air raid sirens wailed nationwide, while booms were heard around Kyiv, where the head of the city administration said that 15 cruise missiles were shot down. People rushed into metro stations, underground car parks and basements as the warning of incoming missiles sounded.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian figure skater Dymtro Sharpar, who had competed in the 2016 Youth Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, had been killed fighting in Bakhmut, a city in the Donbass region in the East of the country.

It is little wonder that Ukraine’s Sports Minister Vadym Guttsait warned today that they would rather boycott Paris 2024 then have to compete alongside athletes from a country which is currently trying to wipe it and its people off the map. 

"If we are not heard, I do not rule out the possibility that we will boycott and refuse participation in the Olympics," he wrote on Facebook.

But still, the IOC insisted that "no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport." 

This ignored the precedent of South Africa, whose athletes were banned by the IOC from 1964 until 1992 because of the country’s apartheid policies.

Before South Africa, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were banned by the IOC from the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp on account of their roles in World War One, and Germany and Japan were not invited to London 1948 after World War Two.

At the time South Africa were banned, I do not recall the IOC lamenting the fact that generations of athletes - many of them black - were denied the opportunity to compete in the Olympics precisely "because of their passport".

Instead, in an attempt to justify its controversial policy on Russia and Belarus, the IOC included a paragraph in its statement about the "participation of individual athletes from the former Yugoslavia at the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992."

It said, "At the time - contrary to the situation today - there were United Nations sanctions in place against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, calling on all Member States to: 'Take the necessary steps to prevent the participation in sporting events on their territory of persons or groups representing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.' However, even under this UN sanction regime, the participation of 'independent athletes' was allowed at the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992."

United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 757 was passed just a few weeks before the start of Barcelona 1992. 

It followed the previous year’s declaration of independence by Slovenia and Croatia, which had triggered bitter inter-ethnic Yugoslav wars.

The UN resolution led to Yugoslavia’s football team losing its place in that year’s European Championship in Sweden, with their replacements Denmark winning the tournament.

The IOC reached a compromise with the UN whereby the Yugoslav Olympic Committee was not invited to the Games but the country's athletes were permitted to compete under the label Independent Olympic Participants. 

Teams were banned, which meant that the basketball squad, seen as potential rivals to the United States' "Dream Team", were unable to take part.

The IOC are being disingenuous by claiming that the current situation is different because of the lack of sanctions, knowing full well that any attempt at imposing such a punishment on Russia will always be blocked because they are permanent members of the UN Security Council and have the power of veto.

Bach’s period as IOC President will be defined by his relationship with Russia. 

How close he is to the country was illustrated moments after he was elected in 2013 to replace Jacques Rogge. 

Then Sochi 2014 President and chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko - now Russia's Deputy Prime Minister - ran through the lobby of the Hilton in Buenos Aires holding his mobile phone in the air, screaming that he needed to find Bach because he had President Vladimir Putin on the line from Moscow wanting to be the first to congratulate him.

Many believe that Bach’s appeasement of Russia during multiple doping scandals, nominally banning them but then allowing the team to compete under the banners "Olympic Athletes from Russia" and the "Russian Olympic Committee", has helped empower Putin and made him believe he will never face any punishment.

Another key difference to Yugoslavia more than 30 years ago, is that sport was not seen as a powerful arm of that country's foreign policy.

Putin would waste no opportunity to celebrate the success of any athletes from Russia who go to Paris 2024 and win a gold medal. 

They would be feted on their return to Moscow and quickly be used as powerful propaganda.

As Guttsait, also President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, pointed out forcibly to Bach during a recent conference call, athletes from Russia are serving in the country's armed forces and they are "killing our people". 

Other Russian athletes not wearing military uniforms are employed nominally in the country’s civil service or police force.

So for the IOC to claim in their statement that "athletes would participate in competitions as 'neutral athletes' and in no way represent their state or any other organisation in their country," is either incredibly naive or deliberately dishonest.

As I wrote on social media earlier this week, "It is clear that to me that the IOC can have Ukraine competing in the Olympics at Paris 2024, or they can have athletes from Russia. They cannot have both. Which one they decide to have will determine the Olympic Movement's future."