Sports and geopolitical tensions nearly collided last month, when the world's attention turned to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. But once the games got underway, concerns about their host country — including Russia's frosty relations with the West and its lack of regard for LGBT rights — were largely overshadowed by the Olympics' orgy of pomp, circumstance and athletic accomplishment.
Now there's a very different — and much more delicate — confluence of sports and politics in the very same place. The 2014 Paralympic Games begin this Friday in Sochi, a week after Vladimir Putin sent troops into the independent Crimea. Many have decried the move as blatantly violating international law.
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Unlike the Olympics, the Paralympics typically unfold beneath the mainstream radar. But Russian hostilities in Ukraine have already disrupted the Paralympics, which run through March 16, with major nations declining to send government officials — and some threatening to pull athletes from the games over safety concerns.
Russia's aggression also raises the question of whether Putin would have responded to the Ukrainian uprising against President Viktor Yanukovych in similarly heavy-handed fashion had the conflict in Kiev reached its climax just a couple weeks earlier, during the height of Olympics-mania.
"We can’t be sure what Putin was thinking," UCLA political science professor and Russia expert Daniel Treisman told Mashable on Monday. "But clearly he did not want to ruin the spectacle of the Sochi Olympics by intervening in Ukraine. It would have been a major embarrassment for those heads of state and other dignitaries who did accept his invitation to attend.
"Clearly he does not think that the Paralympics are on the same level in terms of attracting the press and attention of the world."
The White House on Monday announced that it would no longer send a presidential delegation to Sochi for the Paralympics in response to Russia's intervention in Ukraine. But it's not an all-out boycott. “President Obama continues to strongly support all of the U.S. athletes who will participate in the Paralympics and wishes them great success in the Olympic competition,” White House spokesperson Caitlyn Hayden told Mashable.
British officials announced a similar Paralympics absence on Sunday, with athletes representing Great Britain still scheduled to compete as well. Germany's National Paralympic Committee told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, meanwhile, that it would cancel the entire team's trip if German officials issued a travel warning for Sochi.
Particularly ominous for the Paralympics is that the political crisis has shifted from its capital of Kiev to Crimea — less than 300 miles across the Black Sea from Sochi.

Ukraine's political turmoil began in late 2013 after Yanukovych unexpectedly backed out of a trade deal that would have established closer economic and cultural ties with the European Union in favor of a cozier relationship with Russia. This enraged many Ukrainians longing for more connection to the West.
On Dec. 1 an estimated 1 million protesters, including boxing champ Vitali Klitschko, flooded the streets of Kiev, leading to minor clashes with police.
Then hellish violence engulfed Kiev the week of Feb. 17, leaving more than 70 protesters and police reported dead. Yanukovych fled the capital, and the opposition took over central government buildings. A victory of sorts was declared.
Yet things were not nearly so simple. Some Ukrainians, primarily located in the Eastern half of the country, favor a tight relationship with Russia, which has long seen Ukraine as a sphere of influence since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
That's why the conflict's epicenter has moved southeast, to Crimea: Putin used the notion of protecting Russian interests and people there as a pretext for what some are calling an "invasion" of the area since Yanukovych's overthrow.
Putin remained mum on the Ukraine situation during the Olympics, as violence engulfed Kiev.

People gather during a rally in Kiev's Independence Square, Sunday, March 2, 2014.
Image: Sergei Chuzavkov/Associated Press
Crimea has so far experienced no outbreak of violence, but the situation there is fragile.
Ukranian officials claim 16,000 Russian troops are in the area, and on Monday the Associated Press said Russia had assumed "complete control" of the region.
Ukraine's new leadership calls the move a "declaration of war." China has thrown its support behind Russia amidst condemnation from much of the rest of the world.
“We are monitoring the situation in the Crimea closely as the safety and well-being of our athletes is our top priority," International Paralympic Committee (IPC) spokesperson Craig Spence told Mashable on Monday. Spence added that that 39 of the 45 nations scheduled to participate had already arrived in Sochi, with the remaining six confirmed in transit.
In the Olympics' earliest days, the ancient Greeks established an Olympic truce to safeguard athletes and fans traveling to the games from their respective countries. In 1998, a United Nations resolution officially reinstated the truce — and Spence says it was expanded to formally cover the Paralympics in 2006.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for all participating nations to observe the truce through the conclusion of the Olympics and Paralympics this year.
The Olympic Truce is largely a symbolic concept, but the irony of the games' host taking over part of a neighboring country during it has not been lost by many in the run-up to the Paralympics' start on March 7.
Edward Walker, a UC Berkeley academic and author of the book Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union, told Mashable "Putin had much more at stake politically with the Olympics than with the Paralympics," but "just how Moscow would have reacted had the crisis in Ukrainian developed more rapidly is anyone's guess. Obviously how things shake out in Ukraine is ultimately much more important to Russia, and the rest of the world, than the Olympics."
The Kremlin has yet to respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, left, and the commander of the Western Military District Anatoly Sidorov, right, walk upon arrival to watch military exercise near St.Petersburg, Russia, Monday, March 3, 2014.
Image: Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service/Associated Press