Lavrov continued his demands to see the nation's athletes return to international events, citing IOC President Thomas Bach's recommendations in February to ban athletes and officials from the two countries in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

"When the President of the IOC says that we will decide on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in our events later, depending on how the political situation develops, this is a direct disregard for the principles of the IOC Charter, which includes it is inadmissible to involve any political considerations and political moments in the development of the sports movement and Sports Federations," said Lavrov according to Russian state news agency TASS.

"This is due to competition, I think, no less than with the desire to 'punish' the Russian Federation and Belarus, to remove competitors."

Since then, Russia has focused on sport within the country.

"Those measures that were promptly developed by the Ministry of Sports, in general, our Government, in my opinion, are solving this problem at this stage.

"The All-Russian Spartakiad, which was held at the highest level and crowned with many records, attracted a lot of the attention of specialists abroad. 

"If we take football, we came up with a new format for the Russian Cup, which will make it possible to compensate for non-participation in European Cups."

The Russian Cup - traditionally a knockout competition like most domestic football cup competitions - has changed to a group-stage based event.

Lavrov added there were plans to host competitions with the Commonwealth of Independent States.