The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) wants to play the transparency card. Still suspended by WADA, although six months will soon have passed since the end of its two-year sanction, it has got into the habit of revealing the results of its tests. The problem is that the figures are rising. In May 2023, RUSADA recorded 21 alleged anti-doping rule violations by Russian athletes. This compares with 10 in January, 25 in February, 13 in March and 16 in April. In 2022, when the vast majority of Russian athletes were excluded from international competitions from March due to the conflict in Ukraine, RUSADA said it had identified 135 potential anti-doping rule violations. According to its director general, Veronika Loginova, almost a quarter of the doping cases involved meldonium, a drug widely used in Eastern European countries, which has been banned since January 2016.
