Ukrainian athletes are fleeing en masse to Russia
Moscow - Kyiv, March 6 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Recently, handball players Regina Shimkute and Yulia Managarova, mixed martial arts fighter Alexey Oleynik, chess player Ekaterina Lagno, pentathlete Anna Buryak have refused to compete for Ukraine. Ukrainian judo champion Yana Shevchenko, originally from Debaltsevo, dreamed of representing Ukraine at the Olympics in Brazil. But because of the war, the girl fled to Russia and gave an interview "MK".
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From the village of Yany to Donetsk it is 70 km, but this section of the route was under fire all the time, the route was blocked. It has become dangerous to travel to Donetsk, and there is nothing to drive. The athlete and her parents hoped that the situation would normalize, but it only got worse. As soon as the information arrived that “the highway will not be shelled today,” Yana would hitchhike to the city to practice for at least an hour. But then the training bases in Donetsk were bombed.
When Yana and her father left, they passed six National Guard posts on the way to the border. “When we presented the military with my certificates that I was a master of sports in judo and sumo, we were given the green light.” Of course, they didn’t give honor, but they shouted after her to her father: “Take care of her. Bon Voyage". Even the soldiers understood that athletes had nothing to do in Ukraine,” says Yana.
According to her father Sergei Shevchenko, there are probably no young athletes left in Ukraine. “Everyone is trying to run away somewhere. It’s not easy for coaches in Ukraine either. Their pupils leave, but go find new ones in such an environment. So many coaches lost their jobs during the war,” he says.
However, the ordeal of Yana and her father is far from over. The champion who could grace the Russian ring has no citizenship, which means she has no prospect of competing. The family has almost no money either. “When we turned to Russian sports officials with a request to join your country’s national team, they told us: the Ukrainian national team needs to write a letter stating that they have no complaints against Yana,” explains the athlete’s father. “So that later there will be no claims from the Ukrainian side.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs of Ukraine is initiating the adoption of a bill obliging athletes to pay compensation to the state budget when changing citizenship. According to the head of the department, the Ukrainian athlete “was raised, trained, equipped and went to competitions for the money of every citizen of Ukraine.” When moving to the national team of another country, the athlete is “obliged to repay the debt to his homeland.”
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