Ukrainians have gone beyond sport to take up arms to support their country

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Many Ukrainian athletes raised their voices after Russia invaded their country, without attaching importance to the message "sports unite and politics divide", while some of them decided to go beyond the sporting boundaries and take up arms to defend their land.

Several Ukrainian players, including Alexander Zinchenko and Andrey Yarmolenko, called for "resistance" to the Russian invasion in a video released by the Ukrainian Federation.

Zinchenko (Man City, England), Yarmolenko (West Ham, England), Ruslan Malinovsky (Atalanta, Italy) and Andrei Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk) appeared, respectively, in a two-minute video clip, interspersed with pictures of the conflict.

Many players who play in European leagues have raised 500,000 euros for the Ukrainian armed forces.

In the same context, the Ukrainian coach of the Moldovan club, Sherif Tiraspol, Yuri Fernydub, returned to his country to participate in the war.

The Ukrainian assistant coach of Dynamo Moscow Andrey Voronin also left Russia for Germany, telling the German newspaper Bild that he "can no longer work in the country that is bombing his homeland."

These are words that reminded some of what Ivica Osim, the son of Sarajevo, had said to explain his resignation as coach of Yugoslavia in 1992.

On the other hand, Andrey Shevchenko, striker for Dinamo Kyiv, AC Milan and former Ukraine coach, is active on social networks, where he publishes daily messages of support for his country.

The 2004 Ballon d'Or winner, who defended the colors of Chelsea at the end of his career, participated in a demonstration last Sunday in London, where he took a picture with one of his sons, with the Ukrainian flag on his back.

On Tuesday evening, before the first leg of the Italian Cup semi-final between Milan and Inter (it ended in a goalless draw), the former Rossoneri star appeared in a video message, dressed in yellow and blue, and called for peace amid the applause of the San Siro stadium fans.

After retiring from football, Shevchenko plunged into politics without succeeding in becoming a member of the Ukrainian parliament in 2012.

Boxers

The former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko has replaced the jacket of the mayor of Kiev with a camouflaged military uniform to organize the defense of his city and its 3 million inhabitants.

"I train all the time, I train as an ex-officer and head of regional defense, I know how to shoot with almost all weapons," the former boxer told AFP on February 10.

His younger brother, Vladimir, a former world boxing champion, joined the reserve army, while the former lightweight world champion Vasyl Lomachenko joined the regional defense battalion in Belgorod-Dnistrovskyi near Odessa.

The 34-year-old boxer appeared in a military uniform with a machine gun hanging over his shoulder on the social networking site Facebook.

World heavyweight champion Alexander Usyk published a picture of him carrying a weapon through the Instagram account of the Kharkiv Boxing Club, and the photo was attached to the following comment: "Alexander Usyk has joined the regional defense of the capital and the Kyiv region."

When asked by CNN from the basement of his home near Kyiv, he said he wanted to "defend his home, his wife, his children and his loved ones," stressing, "I don't want to shoot, I don't want to kill," but in the event of an attack, adding, "I won't I have no choice but to respond."

Tennis players and players

, former world number 31 Sergei Stakhovsky has also joined the 'regional resistance'.

"I don't have any military experience. Only individual weapon experience," the 31-year-old retired player said in tears on Twitter, adding, "I hope I don't have to use a pistol."

After leaving his family in Hungary, Stakhovsky added, "I don't really know how I got there. I know it's very difficult for my wife. My children don't know I'm here. They don't understand war."

For her part, after Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, who wore a blue skirt and a yellow shirt indicating the colors of her country's flag, defeated Russia's Anastasia Potapova on Tuesday in the Mexican Games of Monterrey, and said with great emotion, amid the applause of the audience, "All the rewards I earn here will go to the army."

Athletics

more discreetly, pole vaulting legend and head of Ukraine's National Olympic Committee, Sergei Bubka, posted on Twitter a call for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be excluded from international sports competitions launched by the International Olympic Committee on Monday.

In an earlier message, on the third day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the first man to climb 6 meters expressed his thanks for messages of support from around the world.

"The war must end, and humanity must prevail," he added.

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