MOSCOW, February 25 President of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) Alexei Morozov said , which is upset with the withdrawal of the Finnish Jokerit from participation in the Gagarin Cup season 2021/22. On Friday, the club announced that it had decided to suspend participation in the current KHL season due to the situation between Russia and Ukraine. In the Gagarin Cup playoffs, Jokerit, who finished the regular season in second place in the Western Conference table, had to play against Spartak Moscow. «He has been playing with us since the 2014/2015 season and invariably goes to the playoffs. Meetings with all the teams in the league have always been interesting. It's very unpleasant that Jokerit's departure is not due to sports reasons, but political ones,» Morozov was quoted by the KHL official website On Thursday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had decided on a special military operation of the Russian Federation to demilitarize Ukraine. In a televised address to the Russians, he said that the circumstances «require decisive and immediate action from us, the people's republics of Donbass turned to Russia with a request for help.» Earlier, on February 21, Putin signed decrees recognizing the sovereignty of the LNR and the DNR.
