April 13 (Reuters) - Russian and Belarusian athletes will be permitted to compete in World Aquatics events with their respective uniforms, flags and anthems, the sport's governing body said on Monday.
Competitors from both countries were banned from international sports events following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was launched in part from Belarusian territory.
A small number of athletes from both countries were allowed to compete in various sports at the Paris Olympics in 2024, but only as neutrals and not as representatives of their nations.
The next World Aquatics championships, including swimming, artistic swimming, diving, high diving, open water swimming and water polo, are to be held in Budapest in 2027.
WA said more than 700 screenings had been conducted on Russian and Belarusian athletes. It said they would only be cleared to compete after passing at least four successive anti-doping controls and completing background checks.
"Over the last three years, World Aquatics and the AQIU (Aquatics Integrity Unit) have successfully helped ensure that conflict can be kept outside the sporting competition venues," WA President Husain Al Musallam said in a statement.
"We are determined to ensure that pools and open water remain places where athletes from all nations can come together in peaceful competition."
WA also said Russia and Belarus will resume full membership rights.
Russia's sports minister and head of its Olympic Committee, Mikhail Degtyarev, welcomed the decision, saying it would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete on an equal footing with others.
Russia's state-run RIA news agency quoted Dmitry Mazepin, head of the national aquatics federation, as saying Russia could now seek to host future world and European aquatics championships.
Ukraine's Youth and Sports Minister, Matvii Bidnyi, said the ruling was demeaning to his country and athletes who had been killed in four years of war.
"This decision devalues the memory of more than 650 Ukrainian athletes who will never again compete, precisely because of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation," Ukrinform news agency quoted Biodnyi as saying in a statement.
He urged the international community to avoid being "accomplices in legitimising aggression through the sporting achievements of athletes who are, in fact, part of the Russian propaganda machine."
(Reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Bengaluru; Anna Peverieri; Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Christian Radnedge and Ron Popeski)
