Fearing assassination of athletes in Ukraine, the first Ukrainian woman to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics is trying to get them out of their embattled country and to the United States.
"We've got to save Ukrainian figure skaters from being killed by the Russians and get them over here," 1993 world and 1994 Olympic figure skating champion Oksana Baiul told Newsmax on Sunday.
Newsmax spoke to the skating legend (whose official name has been Baiul-Farina since her marriage to oil, gas and energy expert Carlo Farina) a day after she addressed a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, supporting her fellow Ukrainians.
The woman known in her homeland as the "Queen of Ice" for her triumph in figure skating at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway, explained that she is establishing a fund to bring figure skaters from Ukraine to the United States.
She has "no doubt whatsoever" many are on a "blacklist" to be murdered by covert agents of the Russian government.
"I'm not a politician, but I certainly know how Russia operates," said Baiul, who lives in the United States but remains in close touch with friends who are under fire in Ukraine. In many cases, the Olympian told us, her friends avoid the assault from Russia by living underground in the metro subway system.
Baiul strongly believes the "blacklist" includes high-profile athletes, entertainers, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his chief of staff Andriy Yermak.
(It was widely reported in the last week that Zelenskyy survived three assassination attempts orchestrated by killers hired by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Others share Baiul's belief in the existence of a blacklist of Ukrainians Putin wants executed — notably Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia's former ambassador to the U.S. and someone who has dealt with Russia for years, who told us "there was a blacklist of Georgians marked for execution when Russia invaded South Ossetia [a province of Georgia] in 2008. I know because I was on it)."
Baiul predicted her fellow Ukrainians "are not going to give up — especially the younger generation, who believe in democracy and are fighting for it."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.