Russia will remain banned from the Winter Olympic Games that take place next year at Milano-Cortina, in Italy. The IOC said that "the recommendation from March 2023 with regard to teams of athletes with a Russian passport remains in place", banning Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under the Russian or Belarusian flag and anthem.
This follows the same pattern of the Summer Olympics in Paris 2024, which allowed some Russian and Belarusian athletes to complete as neutral athletes. This will likely happen again in the Winter Olympic Games next year, with at least four Russian figure skaters in men's and women's singles being recently approved by the International Skating Union to try to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics as neutral athletes, as reported by Reuters.
However, this will leave out team sports, like ice hockey, which won gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, because "by definition, a group of Individual Neutral Athletes cannot be considered a team". It's been reported that Russian officials were trying to convince the Ice Hockey Federation (IHF) to participate, but they were not allowed, unlike individual sports.