 Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko said that athletes should be "punished" for calls to boycott.On 7 December 2017, it was reported that Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov paid a Russian Olympic athlete millions of rubles in hush money not to reveal Russia's elaborate doping scheme.Prokhorov had run the Russian Biathlon Union from 2008 to 2014 and offered legal services to disqualified Russian biathletes.