(FEB 26) 18 year old Matvii Razhba has spent months training for a major
national boxing tournament scheduled for two weeks from now and
was hoping for a win, the next step toward his dream of boxing
for Ukraine in the 2024 Olympics. “At the age of 10 I went into
boxing,” he said. “I realized that I could defend the honor of
my country in the ring and glorify our beloved Ukraine.”
Razhba attended a social media training with several other
boxers that their manager sent them to on Wednesday afternoon at
a Kharkiv, Ukraine start-up space just 25 miles from the Russian
border. That evening, the group of boxers ended their day in the
gym. “Yesterday we trained, prepared for the tournament,” he
said. “But now we will prepare to defend our country.”
A three time national boxing champion and the second best
light-heavyweight in Europe, Razhba is used to fighting for
Ukraine in the ring. Now, if necessary, he’s ready to do so on
the battlefield. “We are a very peaceful nation,” Razhba
explained. “But if they go to war with us, they will die from
it.”
After building up troops along the border for months, Russia
began attacking Ukraine at dawn on Thursday morning. As rockets
rained on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Uman, and other cities across the
country, targeting factories and warehouses and killing dozens
in the process, what first seemed unimaginable to many
Ukrainians quickly became a reality.
....
“I try to drive away all these thoughts and hope everything will
be fine,” 19 year old Andrey Skakun had said initially on
Tuesday morning when questioned about the situation.
But by early Thursday, Skakun woke up under attack. “I thought
everything would somehow pass us by…Me and my family are
scared,” he said a couple hours after artillery fire 20 miles
away shook his home in Uman, Ukraine. As he hid in the candlelit
basement waiting for updates alongside his mother, father, two
brothers, sister-in-law, five-year old sister and a family
friend, Skakun received a video from a mutual acquaintance named
Tassik showing a large explosion on the other side of town.
“There are victims,” Tassik later said. He had found them while
driving around Uman after the explosion to survey the damage,
listening to Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker from the speakers of
his tricked out Chevy and racing down an empty lane towards the
city as backed up carloads of people sat in traffic on the other
side trying to leave it. His next video showed an off-brand VW
Bus painted red white and blue with its windows blown out beside
a red bicycle thrown haplessly on the asphalt. Its rider was on
the ground next to it – a tarp had been placed over most of
their body, but two severed legs that had been fully cut from
their green trousers remained visible.
Skakun doesn’t know what comes next. But he knows the life he’s
used to is gone for now, and maybe for good. “Now I understand
how cool it was,” he said.
He wants to go back and train at the Ares Boxing Club he has
grown to love, he wants to have another picnic with his friends
alongside the bank of the river that runs through his town, and
he wants to enter the ring once again with the Ukrainian flag
waving behind him. “Of course I will be proud,” he said before
adding: “If I stay alive.” A couple days ago, Skakun had said he
was hopeful that his “future in life and in boxing will not be
affected.” Now, he’s not even confident he’ll have a future at
all. “I want to live,” he said. “Now I understand the expression
– happiness isn’t in the money.”
…
Given the country’s storied pugilistic history, Mykola Kovalchuk
was happy to hear the World Boxing Organization was opening an
office in Ukraine last year, and he was even happier when he was
selected to be its President. A well-known attorney with an MBA
from the University of Edinburgh, Kovalchuk has represented some
of the best boxers in the world — all of them from Ukraine. He’s
also a political ally of brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko,
retired heavyweight boxing World Champions who became two of the
country’s most visible figures both in Ukraine and around the
globe during their decades of dominance in the sport. The former
now serves as the Mayor of Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv and
the latter recently enlisted in the Armed Force Reserves to
“fight for freedom and democracy,” according to his LinkedIn. As
he packed his family up to flee Kyiv for a village in the
countryside — leaving the life he’s worked so hard to build
behind — Kovalchuk is looking towards God and the fighting
spirit of the Ukrainian people to carry them through. “We are
the country of winners,” he said amidst an intense bombing
campaign on his hometown. “We will fight and win!”
….
Roman Shcherbatiuk, a 6’1, 213 pound 2017 world kickboxing
champion trains at the end of every day. But now, instead of
sparring with the Ukrainian National Team, Shcherbatiuk is
planning on running drills with the Cherkasy Territorial Defense
Force, a volunteer military unit preparing to defend the country
against a full invasion. “It is a question of survival and
freedom, and I will fight for my freedom both here and in the
ring,” he said. “We do not want war, but we will defend our land
to the last breath.”
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