Previous sporting bans as IOC calls on world to exclude Russia and Belarus

• 

  A monitor displays a projectile striking the regional state administration building in Kharkiv, as the Russian invasion continues. Reuters

• 

  People help a wounded woman in the aftermath of Russian shelling in Kharkiv. EPA

• 

  Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry the body of a victim following shelling in Kharkiv. AP

• 

  Students who fled the conflict rest in a refugee camp in Voluntari, Romania. AP

• 

  Members of an Ukrainian civil defence unit pass new assault rifles to the opposite side of a blown-up bridge on Kiev’s northern front. AFP

• 

  Civilians cross a river on Kiev's northern front. AFP

• 

  A woman takes photos of a destroyed accommodation building near a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP

• 

  The city hall of Kharkiv, damaged by Russian shelling. AFP

• 

  Debris litters the square outside the damaged Kharkiv city hall. AFP

• 

  A Ukrainian woman sleeps on the floor of the railway station in Zahonyi close to the Hungary/Ukraine border. AFP

• 

  A medical worker attends to wounded man at a hospital in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP

• 

  Refugees from Ukraine in a tent at the Medyka border crossing, Poland. AP

• 

  Debris outside the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile, in Kharkiv. Reuters

• 

  A student evacuated from Ukraine is embraced by her family after arriving at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. AFP

• 

  Rescuers in a building damaged by a missile in central Kharkiv. Reuters

• 

  An ambulance is visible through the damaged window of a vehicle hit by bullets in Kiev, Ukraine. Reuters

• 

  Territorial defence members prepare to head out on patrol in Kiev. EPA

• 

  UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech on screen during the opening of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. AP

• 

  A policeman detains a young demonstrator during a protest against Russia's attack on Ukraine in St Petersburg, Russia. AP

• 

  Local residents in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, prepare Molotov cocktails. Reuters

• 

  Residents clean a bomb shelter under an out-of-service cinema in central Zhytomyr. Reuters

• 

  Ukrainian volunteers tear cloth into strips to make camouflage nets in Lviv, western Ukraine. AP

• 

  Part of the military convoy north-west of Invankiv, Ukraine. AP

• 

  Mark Goncharuk, a young boy from Kiev, leaves his father behind as he travels with the rest of his family towards the border. Reuters

• 

  People hold an anti-war protest outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. Reuters

• 

  A crater caused by shelling on the outskirts of Kiev. AFP

• 

  People queue outside a grocery store in the Ukrainian capital. EPA

• 

  Ukrainian soldiers stand at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kiev. EPA

• 

  Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, second left, and Davyd Arakhamia, faction leader of the Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian Parliament, third right, attend the peace talks in the Gomel region of Belarus. AP

• 

  People who have fled the Russian invasion in Ukraine, clamour to board a bus bound for a refugee centre established in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

• 

  Hanna Pavlovna Lukasz, from Mirhord, Ukraine, said her sons, aged 12 and 8, and her 66-year-old mother had been waiting on the Ukrainian side of the border crossing with Medyka, Poland, for four days. AP

• 

  A volunteer from Kiev prepares a rear post with trenches in the city. AFP

• 

  A child being treated for cancer rests in the bomb shelter of the oncology ward at a hospital in Kiev. Getty

• 

  Police officers check occupants of a suspicious car in Kiev, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters

• 

  A woman from Ukraine uses a phone to listen to a speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a refugee shelter in Beregsurany, Hungary. Reuters

• 

  Shelves empty of bread after a curfew was lifted as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kiev. Reuters

• 

  Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, left, and President Zelenskyy. AFP

• 

  Snow-covered shoes donated for those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Reuters

• 

  People who have fled Ukraine wait for a bus to transport them away from the border crossing in Medyka. Reuters

• 

  Norwegian soldiers of the Nato-enhanced forward presence battalion pose at a military plane as they arrive at an airport in Kaunas, Lithuania. AP

• 

  A person fleeing Ukraine sits during snowfall at a temporary camp in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

• 

  Footage reportedly of Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road before a drone strike near Malyn, Ukraine. Reuters

• 

  An explosion after what are said to be Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road are struck by a drone. Reuters

• 

  The monument to Russian troops from the Second World War, after the figures’ hands were painted red, at the Red Army memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria. EPA

• 

  The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, is lit up with the colours of Ukraine’s national flag in a show of support. AP

• 

  Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of the National Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, in Moscow. EPA

• 

  A man looks out from a train, at the railway station in Lviv, Ukraine. The UN has estimated the conflict could produce as many as four million refugees. AP

• 

  A Ukrainian boy waits for his mother after passing the border crossing point in Siret, northern Romania. EPA

• 

  Russian policemen detain a demonstrator in St Petersburg, during a protest against the country's military actions in Ukraine. EPA

• 

  Ukrainian soldiers at a check point in the city of Zhytomyr. Reuters

• 

  Residents prepare petrol bombs to defend the city, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Reuters

• 

  A pro-Russian fighter sits inside a tank in the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. Reuters

• 

  Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, second left, and Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Defence Minister Valery Gerasimov, left, during their meeting in Moscow. AP

• 

  Ukrainians and supporters gather during a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens against the Russian military's operation in Ukraine. AFP

• 

  Ukrainian Territorial Defence fighters test an automatic grenade launcher taken from a destroyed Russian infantry mobility vehicla after a battle in Kharkiv. AFP

Live updates: follow the latest news on Russia-Ukraine

After Russia was banned from all club football and international events, and the International Olympic Committee pressed for Belarusian athletes and officials to be included over the country's involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, here are some previous politically-motivated sporting sanctions.

World Wars I and II

The two World Wars of the 20th century, which lasted from 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, led to the vanquished countries being excluded from the following Olympic Games.

In the case of World War I, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and Turkey were not allowed to take part in the 1920 Games in Antwerp. Germany was also banned from the following Games in 1924 in Paris.

At the London and Saint-Moritz Summer and Winter Games in 1948, World War II aggressors Germany and Japan were not invited, and the Soviet Union stayed away.

Apartheid

After establishing its racist apartheid policy, South Africa was shut out of the 1964 Games in Tokyo.

The suspension was only lifted in 1992, at the Barcelona Games, after anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was freed and apartheid abolished.

• 

  President Ronald Reagan meets with Afghan Mujahideen representatives on February 2, 1983, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, to discuss Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan. (Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library via AP)

• 

  A Soviet army soldier takes down the Soviet national flag at Kabul airbase as Russian troops departed Afghanistan in 1989. The former Soviet Union marched into Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, 1979, claiming it was invited by the new Afghan communist leader, Babrak Karmal, setting the country on a path of 40 years of seemingly endless wars. AP-Photo

• 

  This picture taken in the mid-80s shows part of the Soviet pull-out from Afghanistan. AFP

• 

  An Afghan boy plays on the wreckage of a Soviet-era tank on the outskirts of Kabul. AFP

• 

  An Afghan boy looks out of a Soviet-era tank in Herat, Afghanistan. Soviet troops occupied the country for ten years from 1979 to 1989. Jalil Rezayee / EPA

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

The 1980 Moscow Olympics were overshadowed by Cold War tensions when the United States led a 65-nation boycott in response to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan a year earlier.

Only 80 nations participated in Moscow, with 6,000 athletes competing, down from the 10,000 originally expected.

The Soviets reacted to the boycott by retaliating with a communist-bloc ban of their own at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Balkan wars

After the break out of the wars in the Balkans and the imposition of UN sanctions, Yugoslavia was banned from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and kicked out of football's European Championship held in Sweden by Uefa. Yugoslav athletes were allowed to compete as independents in Barcelona.

• 

  A Bosnian Muslim woman cleans a gravestone of a victim of the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995, when more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb Army. Getty Images

• 

  Bosnian Muslim women pray as they visit the cemetery for victims of Srebrenica genocide, in Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getty Images

• 

  A man rests under a scar from a war-time projectile on the building where remains of victims of the Srebrenica genocide are placed in Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getty Images

• 

  A Bosnian Muslim woman cleans a gravestone of her relative at the cemetery in Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getty Images

• 

  A man's shadow falls over ]the names of victims of Srebrenica genocide, at the cemetery in Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getty Images

• 

  A Bosnian Muslim man prays by coffins of nine victims of the Srebrenica genocide whose remains discovered and identified since July 2019. Getty Images

• 

  A daughter of a victim of Srebrenica genocide is hugged by her mother after seeing a coffin with remains of her father. Getty Images

• 

  A Bosnian Muslim woman cries between graves of her father, two grandfathers and other close relatives, all victims of Srebrenica genocide, at the cemetery in Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getty Images

• 

  Bosnian Muslims cry over a coffin with the remains of a relative killed at Srebrenica in July 1995. Getty Images

• 

  Bafta award-winning film director Samir Mehanovic, who came to the UK as an immigrant from the Bosnian war in 1995 and now lives in Scotland, lights candles to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, in Edinburgh, Scotland. AP Photo

• 

  The Potocari memorial cemetery near Srebrenica. AFP

• 

  Bosnian Muslim Mejra Djogaz, 71, prays between the tombstones of Omer, 19, and Munib, 21, her two sons killed in the Srebrenica massacre, at the Potocari memorial cemetery. More than 6,600 victims lie at the cemetery while another 237 have been laid to rest at other sites. But more than 1,000 people have never been found. AFP

• 

  Refugees evacuated from the besieged Muslim enclave of Srebrenica struggle for bread on their arrival in Tuzla, Bosnia on March 29, 1993. AP Photo

• 

  More than 2,000 evacuees from the besieged Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, packed on UN trucks en route to Tuzla, halt in Tojsici on March 29, 1993. AP Photo

• 

  Refugees from Srebrenica look through the razor-wire at a UN base outside Tuzla on July 13, 1995. AP Photo