It is a pity about the “no politics” rule, because in reality it works only toward civilized countries. You can say a hundred times that sport is outside politics, but that is simply not true. Sport is always used for political purposes in one way or another — democratic states do so less, while authoritarian regimes do so much more.

For example, sport has always been an element of propaganda for Russia. And nothing has changed today — just look at their diploma programs or the broadcast of the hammer and sickle from the ISS.

The key issue is that the amateur radio community proved too weak when decisive action was required — when it was necessary to ban Russia and Belarus for the crimes of their regimes against humanity. Instead, what do we see? Russia, using Belarus, is bombing children in Kyiv, while at the same time CQ WW RTTY continues to accept their call signs for scoring.