Anastasia Shabotova

Anastasiia Sergeevna Shabotova (, ; born 17 January 2006) is a Russian-Ukrainian figure skater. Competing for Ukraine, she is the 2021 CS Denis Ten Memorial Challenge bronze medalist and a three-time Ukrainian national champion (2020–2022). She competed in the final segment at the 2020 World Junior Championships. Shabotova is the 12th woman to land a triple Axel internationally and the first Ukrainian woman.

Shabotova originally competed domestically for Russia before requesting to switch nationalities to Ukraine in May 2019 after she made comments during an Instagram livestream that alleged widespread doping among top Russian figure skaters.

Russian invasion of Ukraine In March 2022, Shabotova liked Evgeni Plushenko's comments on Instagram describing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as an "unavoidable special operation". She responded to media requests asking if she supported Plushenko with the following comment: "I like whatever I want, but mostly that which is in my newsfeed. And to think that I support someone with my like is very stupid." After removing her like, Shabotova posted on Instagram the caption: "My position has always been and will always remain this: the world should be without war, without death and fear of people."

For her behavior, Shabotova was consequently expelled from the Ukrainian national team by order of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and thereby could not compete at the 2022 World Championships to which she was originally assigned. Plushenko later posted on his Telegram account that he was "ready to accept [Shabotova] into our academy [Angels of Plushenko] and provide all the conditions for training."

Shabotova's behavior supporting Russia also drew attention to her actions during the 2022 Winter Olympics a month prior, where she expressed support for Kamila Valieva amidst Valieva's doping scandal and expressed happiness at personally knowing the new Olympic champion, Anna Shcherbakova, despite the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine asking its athletes to refrain from interacting with the ROC delegation.

Career Early career Shabotova began skating in 2009 under Irina Strahova in Moscow at the Moskvich School.