Ovechkin appears in Putin party campaign video days before Russian elections

The Washington Capitals captain was filmed standing behind Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT, as Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a speech defending the invasion of Ukraine. Russian business daily Vedomosti published images from the shoot.

Lavrov and Simonyan have both been under European Union sanctions since 2022. The EU barred RT from broadcasting across the bloc that year, though enforcement has proved uneven in several member states.