Lukashenko And War In Ukraine: Sobolenko Criticized For Vogue Interview

The world number one is trying to convince everyone that he is out of politics.

The world-famous fashion magazine Vogue has placed Belarusian athlete Arina Sobolenko on its May cover - luxury brands have now started promoting themselves through tennis, which attracts the rich as entertainment. The world number one snagged a contract with Gucci earlier this year, and has now promoted the brand's clothing in a photo shoot with the publication, writes "Tribuna".

The tennis player also spoke in an interview with Vogue about the "heckling from people on the tour" - it was, mol, about the war in Ukraine. As Vogue articulated from herself, "some players accuse Sobolenko of openly supporting the war, others that she's not using her platform to more strongly condemn it." And the athlete stated that "sport is a place where you can unite, not fight each other as if we have our own war," calling Ukrainians and Belarusians "the same" and "closely linked for a long time."

But it doesn't work for Ukrainians to unite with Sobolenko, who throughout the war has not even been able to say who is attacking and who is defending. Even in the current interview she said that "they should deal with this shit with the help of negotiations," but she did not specify who "they" are. When in 2023, Ukrainian journalist Tribuna.com Darya Meshcheriakova asked the athlete a question on the topic with the kind of directness that her Western colleagues have never achieved since, Sobolenko, instead of "speaking as she feels," simply refused to answer. She did not come to the next press conference at all, because, they say, she "did not feel safe" under the weight of uncomfortable words.

In general, the tennis player for years has been defending herself by saying that she does not support the war, and now she says that she does not want it. But actions don't correlate with speeches. Ukrainian colleague Alexandra Oliynikova separately noted a month ago that Sobolenko supported with a liking (for Lukashenko's "courts," a liking can be a reason to send her to jail, so the action is serious) the appeal of Russian TV presenter Viktoria Boni to the head of the regime Vladimir Putin - she tried to convince that he "does not get real information" about the problems, but she did not criticize the war in any way and said that she personally supports Putin. Bigger fact: the Belarusian athlete has been working with a project backed by a Russian bookmaker since 2025, and she is no stranger to "SWO," as they call the war in Ukraine.

Sobolenko said she respects that Ukrainian rivals don't shake her hand, but doesn't consider it something personal. However, who else has personally said that he sees no problem wearing a ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, and then never did?

Vogue also remembered Alexander Lukashenko - when Sobolenko talked about developing her career at a young age, she separately thanked businessman Alexander Shakutin for his contribution, and the publication explained that he was subject to EU sanctions because of his proximity to the "authoritarian president," as the dictator was called. Once the tennis player felt "a lot of heath" in her direction and in the context of the Belarusian regime. Namely in the fall of 2020, when Lukashenko only rigged "elections" and drowned mass peaceful protests in violence. In 2019, Sobolenko said that Lukashenko "in a broad sense was and remains" on her team, and after the "elections" she said that she was against violence and for peace, without explaining who was to blame for the presence of the former and the absence of the latter. But on the day of another mass beating of Belarusians, she publicly worried about her makeup - and when asked about the relevance of the moment, she advised the disgruntled to "wise up," called them "nobodies" and wrote that "unfortunately, the earth carries such people, too."

Sobolenko soon afterwards joined the list of signatories for the dictator, and then came to celebrate the New Year at his house. Only in 2023, the tennis player, who managed to claim in parallel that "sport is out of politics," said that she does not support Lukashenko at the moment.

Sobolenko tries to convince everyone that she is out of politics. Here are examples, where you can see at once: Arina has always tried very, very hard to distance herself from it

In general, the unpleasant for Sobolenko messages from the audience and from colleagues look not like a hit, but an understandable position - a response to specific actions and a complete lack of specificity in a number of issues, from which the supposedly always sincere and direct tennis player invariably walks away. Which does not prevent her from having the feeling that "her life has been everything imaginable" - deceptive when her biography does not include episodes of survival either in isolation centers on Okrestina or under rocket fire, as in Ukraine.

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