Shakhtar Donetsk is one of Ukraine’s most successful football teams ever. In 2009, the club won the UEFA Cup, becoming the first club from Ukraine to win a European club tournament after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In addition, the club comes from the hard-hit region of Donbass. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Shakhtar has, among other things, paid to send five seriously injured soldiers for medical treatment in Israel, the United States and Spain.
Something that cost the club around SEK 5.7 million in total.
Helped 31 children
“You can’t imagine the injuries they have,” says Shakhtar CEO Sergej Palkin to the AFP news agency.
— Two of them are paralyzed, others received catastrophic wounds during a rocket attack. We want to give them a chance at a normal life. The families cannot bear these expenses, and the government has no capacity to provide this kind of financial assistance, so we take care of them.
During the Russian invasion, children have also been hit hard. Some children have been killed, some have been left orphaned and others have been forcibly transferred to Russia.
— We have taken care of 31 children who lost their parents because of the war and we have found 17 families for them, says Palkin.
“Very wrong”
At the same time, Shakhtar’s Ukrainian national team defender Ivan Petriak, who himself lost his father-in-law in the war, is critical of International Olympic Committee chairman Thomas Bach. The IOC chief recently ruled that it is wrong to stop Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing based solely on nationality.
After that, several sports, including table tennis and taekwondo, decided to let Russians and Belarusians compete again.
— Bach is very wrong, says Petriak. Every day they kill our children, people, athletes. More than 200 athletes have been killed and he wants to say that Russia and Belarus are welcome to the Olympics. How is that possible?
Petriak says he can’t imagine a scenario where he plays against Russian teams in the future – “they’re like zombies” he uses to describe the Russian players and their support for President Vladimir Putin.
“The situation is not possible,” he says.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Sports announced last week that it is stopping national team athletes from competing in international competitions where Russians and Belarusians participate.