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At the 2024 Paris Olympics, security fears and logistical challenges abound
The 2024 Summer Olympics kick off in Paris, France, this week, as the world’s most elite athletes and over 300,000 spectators gather along the Seine for one of the most ambitious Opening Ceremonies in the history of the Games. But will Paris pull it off?
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins for a preview of what to expect at the 2024 Paris Olympics, along with security challenges and political concerns going into this year’s Games. Global conflicts loom large, threatening to overshadow the City of Light’s big celebration. Following the IOC ban on Russia’s Olympic Committee due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has been spreading AI-generated misinformation around the Games, increasing the threat of terrorism. The 2024 Games will be a huge challenge because the Olympic sites are embedded throughout the city of Paris and across France. The logistics are so complicated Jenkins predicts it will be “the most difficult Olympics to secure by a long shot.”
Look for the full interview with Sally Jenkins on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, airing on US public television soon (check local listings.)
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
- What We’re Watching: Putin’s propaganda, new Iran-Israel feud, Title 42 tussle ›
- Ian Explains: Who does China and Russia want to win the US election, Biden or Trump? ›
- France’s center right splits over cooperating with Le Pen ›
- Politics, protest & the Olympics: the IOC’s Dick Pound ›
- Paris 2024 Olympics chief: “We are ready” ›
Can phone calls change Russian views about the war?
As the war in Ukraine enters its second month, some two-thirds of Russians support Vladimir Putin’s invasion, according to local pollsters.
In part that’s because the Russian government has gone to great lengths to control information about the conflict. The government has banned Western social media sites, hounded independent journalists out of the country, and arrested thousands of anti-war protestors. Merely calling Vladimir Putin's “special operation” a “war” can land you in prison for up to 15 years.
But some outside Russia are taking an innovative and very straightforward approach to changing Russian opinions: picking up the phone.
Anton Krasun, a Ukrainian-born tech entrepreneur in Ireland, recently created the Call Russia project. It’s a website that links volunteers with a database of 40 million publicly available phone numbers in Russia. With one click, you are on the line with an ordinary Russian somewhere between Voronezh and Vladivostok.
Krasun says the idea isn’t to challenge people’s beliefs head on.
“We want to appeal to human feelings, no matter what your beliefs are, everyone values human life,” says Krasun. “What’s happening in Ukraine is not a 'special operation,' it’s a war, and children are dying."
"If enough Russians start to see things differently," he believes "we can stop this war."
So far, volunteers from 50 countries have made more than 90,000 of the calls. One of them, is Nikita, a Russian emigré artist in Brooklyn, New York. He let us sit in on some of his calls.
In one of them, a man picked up while sitting in a traffic jam in an unknown large Russian city. "Sure," he said, "we can talk."
Giving his name only as "you can call me 'you'," he was categorical: he supported the war. "Ukraine," he said, "is a seedbed of Nazis."
In another call, a woman who refused to give her name but said she was in Moscow had a milder view, but one still in line with the Kremlin's message. "This war was necessary, it was unavoidable," she said. "Obviously I feel for the people of Ukraine, but Im a patriot and I love my country -- I believe my president -- if he hadn't attacked Ukraine, the Ukrainian army would have attacked us first."
"Changing beliefs like these in Russia today wont be easy," according to Maxim Sytch, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies how social and organizational networks create power and influence.
For Sytch, who grew up in both Russia and Ukraine, It's not just a problem of poor access to information. Russians now hold "deeply entrenched beliefs" that have been shaped by years of state-guided propaganda about Western threats in general, and the rise of fascism in Ukraine in particular.
Russians have been told that this is a war to liberate Russian-speakers in Ukraine from a Nazi government bent on their extermination. To suddenly oppose this war, he says, Russians would have to give up that whole world view.
Still, despite long odds, Krasun and his team of volunteers are still calling. "We have a duty to try," he says.
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