Author: Ihor Stelmach

Yevhen Pronin leads a double life. No, he is not a secret agent working covert operations, playing one side against the other. Currently in the position of acting president of the Ukrainian Athletics Federation, the 31-year-old attorney also works as a drone operator amid the war with Russia. He is juggling fighting for his country...

Anthony Joshua entered the ring as champion when he met Oleksandr Usyk last September in London and lost his three heavyweight titles to the Ukrainian. Joshua fared a bit better in the return engagement on August 20 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but it wasn’t enough. Usyk won the split decision, with two judges scoring the...

Brovary is a city in Ukraine with a population of about 100,000 inhabitants, a suburb east of Kyiv. In late February and early March, Russian planes were regularly dropping bombs all over the area. When Artur Felfner looked to the skies, he saw terrifying sights. Sports were one of the last things on his mind....

Officials from Ukraine were quick to denounce Turkish football fans who chanted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s name at a Champions League match in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27. Thousands of Fenerbahce fans joined in the chant after their team gave up a goal to Ukrainian club Dynamo Kyiv. Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said the incident...

It will go down as arguably the top sporting event of a distinctly infamous year. The Ukrainian national soccer teams’ quest to qualify for the 2022 World Cup amid an ongoing war moved forward with a pulsating playoff semifinal 3-1 win over Scotland on June 1. The game, which took place at Hampden Park in...

Dynamo Kyiv’s surprising run at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League continued with an extra-time victory over Sturm Graz in the third qualifying round on August 9. The Ukrainian club is now two games away from making the lucrative group stage of the Champions League ahead of a playoff versus Benfica of...

Ukraine places seventh at European Youth Olympic Festival Forty-six Ukrainian athletes competed at the 2022 European Youth Olympic Festival on July 24-30 in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. A total of 2,253 athletes representing 48 nations participated in 120 events in 10 sports. The sports included artistic gymnastics, athletics, badminton, basketball, cycling, handball, judo, swimming, tennis and...

During the Calgary Flames’ first round of National Hockey League (NHL) playoff action against the Dallas Stars in the recently completed season, Matthew Tkachuk made a huge difference as a multi-dimensional player. He managed six points in the seven-game elimination of the Stars, including five assists in five different games and a game-tying goal in...

Ukrainian forward Ivan Lodnia was announced as the Chicago Wolves’ nominee for the American Hockey League’s Yanick Dupre Award that goes to the league’s 2021-2022 Person of the Year award. Due to season-long health and safety protocols instituted by the AHL, Wolves players were limited in opportunities to connect with Chicagoans and support local charities...

Far away from Ukraine, on another continent, two Ukrainian soccer clubs are flying their country’s national flag, demonstrating solidarity with the people of their homeland and raising awareness about the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine through the sport of football. Just like many other lower league clubs, the Ukrainian Nationals of Philadelphia and the New...

Ukraine’s Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling team relocated to Indiana for training this summer. The team arrived on July 14 thanks to the efforts of Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, who met with a Ukrainian ambassador in Washington, D.C., shortly after Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine. Holcomb’s offer to support Ukraine at the meeting prompted the...

Yevhen Pronin, president of Ukraine’s track and field federation, left the front lines in the middle of July to accompany some 22 Ukrainian athletes to the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Ore. Only four men and 18 women made it to Oregon, with the other 20-plus men unable to attend due to military commitments in...