Photo: FILE - In this Aug. 19, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with American boxer Roy Jones Jr. in Sevastopol, Crimea. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, file)
Black American boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. is being called out by former Ukrainian heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko over Jones’ strong ties to Russia.
On Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, and since then, a total of 3,153 civilians have been killed, the U.N.’s Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement in early May, according to Reuters.
Jones, a former four-weight world champion, became a Russian citizen in 2015 after President Vladimir Putin accepted his request. Jones told Putin he wanted to open a gym and start a business in Russia and that being a citizen of the country would make the process easier, the Mirror reported.
Jones asked Putin for citizenship in August 2015 over a cup of tea when they met in Crimea, ESPN reported. (Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe.)
A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship and does not lose the citizenship of the country of birth. U.S. law does require a person to choose one citizenship or another.
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In a video posted to social media, Klitschko questions Jones’s “moral compass” and criticizes him for his connection to Russia.
Klitschko asks Jones to clarify “what side he is on” in the video.
“I am super happy to be able to address all of you tonight. Well, almost all of you. There is one person for whom I have a real question [for]. One person broke Ukrainian law by going to the occupied peninsula of Crimea through Russian territory,” Klitschko said in a Twitter video.
“That person is Roy Jones. So Roy, whose side are you on? On the side of the aggressor or on the side of the defender of its right to live. I respect you as a fighter, but I really question your moral compass.
In the past, Jones praised Putin, calling him a “man’s man.”
“He’ll fish, he hunts, he boxes. He does taekwondo, Aikido — things that men love. That is just who he is, and he is a man of his word. The problem people have with him is that if he says he is going to do something, there ain’t no question that he’s going to do it,” the Mirror reported Jones as saying.
Jones added, “I have nothing but love and respect for a person like that because that is the way life should be. That is what I like about Mr. Putin. If he says he is going to do something, he is going to do it. ‘Look, you want to be a Russian citizen? Bam. I can make that happen.’ It is just that simple.”
Photo: FILE – In this Aug. 19, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with American boxer Roy Jones Jr. in Sevastopol, Crimea. Vladimir Putin has given Russian citizenship to former world heavyweight boxing champion Roy Jones Jr. A decree published on the Kremlin’s website in the Russian president’s name Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015 said the American, a four-weight champion once regarded by many as the world’s best boxer, had been given Russian nationality. Jones asked Putin for citizenship in August over a cup of tea when they met in Crimea — the territory annexed by Russia last year — saying it would make doing business in Russia much easier. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, file)
