I’ve heard this from fans and we’ve heard this from his camp. It’s an argument that persists without a single example of Ovechkin being anything other than an enthusiastic Putin supporter. When Ovechkin started PutinTeam in 2017, three years into the invasion of Ukraine, anonymous Caps sources tried to give Ovi some cover and told the Post he was enlisted to do so by the government. Ovechkin corrected them and said it was actually his idea. His Instagram profile picture is him and Putin. He posted a hashtag suggesting the invasion of Ukraine was about saving children. He’s in an ad standing with a woman wanted by the ICC for kidnapping Ukrainian children (by her own admission). He married the daughter of a Russian businessman connected to the Russian defense industry and multiple U.S.-sanctioned companies. The Russian celebrities he parties and vacations with according to IG posts aren’t the ones who spoke against the regime and faced consequences, or even the ones who stayed silent — they’re among Putin’s most ardent supporters. They describe Ukrainians as Nazis (Jasmine), describe the war as “a just cause” (Artem Dzyuba) and perform at Putin’s rallies (Sergei Zhukov). Ovechkin’s own GM was confident enough about Ovechkin having a choice in participating in the campaign video to say that if Ovechkin had told them he planned to do the ad, “I doubt we'd be standing where we're standing right now if he had run it by us.” Now, if you ask me why journalists are making the same argument Ovechkin’s camp has made for the last dozen years — without evidence and without, in at least one instance, agreement from Ovechkin himself — I haven’t the slightest clue.