The fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is later this month. Not that anyone in the bludgeoned nation needs to be reminded.
The death toll has climbed into the tens of thousands. Many more have been displaced. Land has been taken, cities destroyed. Food shortages and power outages plague the country, a situation worsened by an unforgiving winter.
So when FIFA president Gianni Infantino suggested to Sky News earlier this month that Russia’s ban from international soccer — a penalty for its military aggressions — has “not achieved anything” and should be revisited, Ukrainians were appalled.
“It will be better for him to come and to see what's going on here,” Serhiy Palkin, chief executive of Shakhtar Donetsk, one of the country’s most successful soccer clubs, told Yahoo Sports this week. “People say to take football out of politics. It's not correct, because it's part of our life. Football is a game where thousands, millions, billions of people are watching and are interested. Politics and football are all together. … He's supporting Russia and destroying Ukraine. It looks like he is ignoring Ukraine. For me, I don't understand. I don't understand this kind of statement.”
Although Infantino’s suggestion did not gain much traction at the annual gathering of European soccer officials in Brussels on Thursday, it did seem to nudge the door open to a limited return in the near future, in particular at the youth level. Russia’s larger aim is reinstatement for the European Championship and World Cup.
"UEFA's position is clear and has not changed but we are looking into everything, every day," UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin told reporters in Brussels. “Let’s see what the future brings.”
Infantino, who forged a close relationship with Vladimir Putin when Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup, said the ban has “just created more frustration and hatred.”
Ukrainian officials won’t hear of it.
"Gianni Infantino's words sound irresponsible — not to say infantile,” Matvii Bidnyi, Ukraine’s minister of youth and sports, wrote on social media.
“I don't understand at all what [Infantino] is thinking,” Palkin said in the Yahoo interview. “We have four years of war. … It's unbelievably difficult to survive in these circumstances. … Infantino is always saying we are one football family, but he never pays attention to Ukrainian football. He just does everything to destroy our football, not protect our football, not help our football.”
Russia has been a sports pariah since the 2022 invasion, when UEFA and FIFA joined the International Olympic Committee in suspending the country’s participation in official competitions. Aside from youth and senior national teams, clubs were forbidden from competing in European tournaments.
Ukrainian resistance returned to the sports forefront this week at the Winter Olympics in Italy, when skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified for wearing a helmet showing photos of Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed in the war. The IOC said the helmet violates rules forbidding political messages in competition.
Ukrainian freestyle skier Kateryna Kotsar was barred from using a helmet with the inscription "Be Brave Like Ukrainians.”
Heraskevych wrote on his Instagram page that “this is the price of dignity.”
Palkin concurred, saying, “The Olympic Games is one space where you can pay attention to the situation, where you can send messages saying what's going on in real life.”
Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine’s greatest goal scorer and current Ukrainian Football Association president, met with Infantino in Brussels.
“We sat down. He listened,” Shevchenko told the Daily Mirror.
Ukrainian soccer has felt the bruising effects of war. Because of the dangers at home, the national team played 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Poland, while several clubs, including Shakhtar, have had to relocate to safer cities indefinitely.
Shakhtar actually fled its home in eastern Ukraine in 2014, when Russian separatists claimed the Donbas region and annexed Crimea. These days, the team is based in Lviv, 750 miles west of Donetsk. Players live in a hotel. Home matches are played in a shared stadium. The number of spectators is determined by the capacity of nearby bomb shelters, typically 2,500.
Top-flight clubs from Kharkiv and Luhansk have relocated to Zhytomyr and Kyiv, respectively. Others from various divisions have ceased or suspended operations.
“The biggest problem is at night because the Russians try to bomb our cities at night,” Palkin said. “Sometimes, our team doesn’t sleep all night and then the next day we have to play an official game. I mean, what kind of football can we show when we don’t sleep?”
Because Ukrainian airspace is closed, Shakhtar’s travel for European competitions requires a 110-mile bus ride to the closest major airport in Poland. Border backups can result in 12 hours sitting on the bus. “Home” matches are played in Krakow, Poland.
Retaining players, not to mention recruiting players from abroad, is a challenge.
“Everyone understands the dangerous situation we have,” Palkin said. “I spent a lot of time talking to agents and parents trying to convince them to come. Sometimes I get a refusal, sometimes they agree. We can’t compete [for players] like we did before war.”
Rated the ninth-best club circuit in Europe as recently as 2020-21, Ukraine has dropped to No. 25. Consequently, the winner no longer receives an automatic berth in the formal stage of the Champions League, Europe’s top competition.
Shakhtar has persevered, winning the domestic league in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Since Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv have claimed all but one first-division trophy.
At this season’s winter break, Shakhtar sits in second place, tied on points with LNZ Cherkasy but behind in the head-to-head tiebreaker. In Europe, Shakhtar has advanced to the Round of 16 in the third-tier Conference League.
The roster features 13 Ukrainians and a dozen Brazilians — because Brazil exports more talent than any other country, even to war zones. The coaching staff is largely Turkish, headed by Arda Turan, a former Atlético Madrid and Barcelona midfielder.
“Every day living in this kind of situation, the emotions are very difficult,” Palkin said. “If you tell us at the beginning of the war that it will continue for years, nobody will believe that it will be so long and so hard.”
Infantino’s comments about Russian reinstatement made it even harder.
“We have optimism because we hear about negotiations and hope for positive results, but the current situation is becoming worse,” Palkin said, “because they're trying to destroy us.”