Russia has been banned from all global sporting events, including the 2020 Olympic Games and the 2022 football World Cup.
The ban has been issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which has imposed a four-year ban on the country from all global sporting events, as a result of persistent state-sponsored doping of its athletes.
Watch this news report about the ban below:According to a report by BBC News, the WADA made a unanimous decision after the organization's executive committee met last week in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Russia's Anti Doping Agency, which was found guilty of manipulating laboratory data earlier this year, now has 21 days to appeal against the ban by referring to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
It was discovered that Moscow had been planting fake evidence and deleting files linked to positive doping tests which helped identify drug cheats. Sports Minister, Pavel Kolobkov, attributed the discrepancies in the laboratory data to technical issues.
Commenting on the move, WADA vice-president Linda Helleland stated: "I wanted sanctions that can not be watered down. We owe it to the clean athletes to implement the sanctions as strongly as possible."
More than 150 Russian athletes competed under a neutral flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, after the country was banned from competing. This followed a major scandal during the 2014 Soch Olympics, where Russian athletes won 33 medals, after several members of the team were found to be using steroids.
However, Russia will be able to compete at Euro 2020 (hosted in St Petersburg) since European football's governing body UEFA is not defined as a ''major event organization'' according to the terms set by the WADA.