The entry through a “special military operation” as Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation baptized it, started the armed conflict days ago that is still going on in Ukraine and claiming several dozen lives.
This conflict has not been unrelated to the world of sport with FIFA expelling the men’s and women’s teams from the next World Cup and the next European Championship, UEFA doing the same with the clubs or the IOC inviting those who compete without their national symbols. Russian and Belarusian athletes, whose country partially facilitated Russian military operations against Ukraine.
In the specific case of Ukrainian athletes there have been more belligerent tones (insults from Zozulya or Zinchenko to Putin), some more in the ‘No to war’ and others affected by a situation that catches them directly in territory classified as ‘enemy’ for your country. This is that of Yaroslav Rakitsky, a Ukrainian player for Zenit St. Petersburg.
He asked to stay out of the squad for Monday’s match between the Blues and Rubin Kazan in which his team won 3-2. A key victory that made them leaders and in which he decided not to be. The coach, Alexander Medvedev, assured that he did not “feel physically prepared”.
It was not the only time that these tensions affected the player’s career. In 2019, when there was already an existing conflict in Donbas, an area from which the Ukrainian is considered ‘pro-Russian’, Rakitsky accepted the transfer to Zenit Saint Petersburg and it cost him his place in the national team, for which Shevchenko did not call him up again since he wore the shirt of this club. Given the circumstance, the player decided to withdraw from the national team.
Voronin leaves Dinamo Moscow
The former Ukrainian striker and regular partner in his time as Shevchenko’s player in the national team, Andriy Voronin has decided to resign his position as assistant coach at Dinamo Moscow on Tuesday. As he himself explains in Bild, it has been the war between Russia and Ukraine that has led him to resign.
“I don’t see any chance of continuing in a country where their army destroys our cities and shoots civilians. We left Moscow before it was totally blocked. We couldn’t land in Dusseldorf, so we flew to Amsterdam. My father, my mother-in-law, my wife and children are there now,” he told the German newspaper.
He assures that the situation in Ukraine affects him personally. “I’ve had a really bad time these days. When I saw all the images of my country on the news. It seemed unreal to me, like a movie, but horror. I hardly have any words left,” he said. During the morning of this Tuesday, club and coach ended their commitment by mutual agreement.
Regarding Putin, he assures that “perhaps he just wants to be in the history books, but he will never be… or at most as a criminal. Stop that son of… and help the refugees. Send weapons so that we can defend ourselves. I am very proud of our country. We have beautiful cities and great people. We will continue to fight and win, but the price is so high. So many dead… We live in 2022 and not in the Second World War. I have friends in Kharkov, in Kiev and in my hometown of Odessa. I get messages every five minutes. It’s hard to bear. I just want to help with money or whatever. I don’t know if I should say it, but if I were in Ukraine right now, I would probably have a gun in my hand.”
