The International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPRO) announced the death of two Ukrainian players as a result of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
Vitaly Sapelo, 21, and Dmytro Martinenko, 25, lost their lives in the fighting.
Sapelo was part of the Karpati Lviv youth team and passed away last Friday, his club announced.
Martinenko, who played for FC Gostomel, died after Russian bombs hit his home during one of the attacks.
“Our thoughts are with the families, friends and fellow young Ukrainian footballers Vitaly Sapelo (21) and Dmytro Martinenko (25), who constitute the first reported football loss of this war,” FIFPro said in a statement. “.
With the start of the Russian invasion of their country, several Ukrainian players, including Alexander Zinchenko and Andrey Yarmolenko, called for “resisting” the Russian invasion in a video released by the Ukrainian Federation.
“We ask everyone in football to oppose Russian propaganda, to show and tell the truth about the war in Ukraine by all possible means.”
Our thoughts are with the families, friends, and teammates of young Ukrainian footballers Vitalii Sapylo (21) and Dmytro Martynenko (25), football’s first reported losses in this war.
May they both rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/f6l9oHHRMr
– FIFPRO (@FIFPRO) March 1, 2022
Zinchenko (Manchester City, England), Yarmolenko (West Ham, England), Ruslan Malinovsky (Atalanta, Italy) or Andrey Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk) appeared 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, and told the German newspaper Bild that he “can no longer work in the country that is bombing his homeland.”
For his part, the former world champion in boxing, Vitali Klitschko, replaced the jacket of the mayor of Kyiv 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.