Russian state officials and religious leaders have leveled bitter criticism at the opening ceremonies of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, seizing on the wet weather and flamboyant first-night costumes to detract from global games where Russian participation is strictly curbed and national symbols remain banned over the invasion of Ukraine.
The current ban follows previous curbs on Russian athletes and the exclusion of Russian national symbols and officials over state-sponsored doping offenses.
Both the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Orthodox Church's leadership issued anti-LGBT statements after the lavish July 26 opening ceremonies in which more than 10,000 athletes from over 200 countries plied the River Seine in national colors.
"A cultural and historical suicide is taking place in one of the former Christian capitals of European civilization," Vakhtang Kipshidze, a spokesman for the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, was quoted as saying.
President Vladimir Putin has made vilification of the LGBT community a key pillar of his politically packed appeals to preserve "traditional" aspects of Russian society.
The Russian Supreme Court last year declared the LGBT "movement" extremist, paving the way to strict penalties for offenders.
Also on July 27, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized a campy scene at one point in the sprawling ceremony in Paris that some likened to Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper by saying it was a "mockery of a sacred story for Christians."
She accused the ceremony organizers of showing Christ's Apostles "as transvestites."
"Evidently in Paris they decided that if the Olympic rings are multicolored, you can turn it all into one giant gay parade," Zakharova said.
Zakharova called the event a "ridiculous open-air opening ceremony [that] forced guests to sit for hours under pouring rain" and suggested organizers should have thought of "seeding the clouds" to try to modify the weather.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on May 27 that the logistically complex and visually stunning opening ceremony had "made our compatriots extremely proud."
But the still unresolved sabotage of train networks around France caused delays and tarnished both the opening and second days of these Olympics. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the coordinated nighttime attacks on rail junctions.
SEE ALSO: 'Creating Havoc And Panic': Kremlin-Friendly Fake News Takes Aim At Paris OlympicsAlready under siege from what experts said were Russian-based disinformation campaigns targeting the Paris Olympics, French authorities announced this week the detention of a 40-year-old Russian chef who is alleged to have been involved in a "largescale" plot to disrupt or destabilize the games.
Both of the Russian institutions that criticized the ceremonies are on the outside looking in, with the ongoing ban on Russian representatives at these Summer Games.
Last year, following athlete bans for systematic Russian doping, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Russia over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and Moscow's claim to have annexed four regions in its ongoing full-scale invasion.
But it later said individual Russian and Belarusian athletes could apply under strict criteria.
The IOC eventually cleared 14 Russian and 11 Belarusian athletes to compete under neutral status in cycling, gymnastics, weightlifting, and wrestling events.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) concluded in 2016 that more than 1,000 people had participated in an elaborate and long-running doping scheme between 2011 and 2014 that was sponsored by the Russian state.
Russian athletes were allowed to apply specially as individuals to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, but the Russian national team and state symbols were banned.
WADA then banned Russian athletes and officials from the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing for mishandling doping data.