Six months later, football league returns to war-torn Ukraine
Under the threat of Russian attacks in a war that stopped all football in Ukraine, a new league season starts Tuesday in Kyiv with the goal of restoring some sense of normalcy in the country of some 44 million.
The elegant Olympic Stadium has staged the biggest European football games in the past decade though none as poignant as the opening-day meeting of Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist 1925 from Kharkiv — teams from cities near Russia that are fighting for their very existence.
No fans will be allowed in the 65,000-capacity downtown stadium for the midday kickoff, and the players must be rushed to bomb shelters if air-raid sirens sound.
"We have rules in case of an alarm and we should go to be underground," Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko said Monday in a telephone interview with AP. "But I think the teams, the players will be proud of this event."
"We are ready, we are strong and I think we will show to all the world Ukrainian life and will to win," the national-team veteran said.
The Ukrainian Premier League returns with the blessing of the nation's leaders and in a week heavy with meaning.
Tuesday is Ukraine's national flag day and Wednesday — 24 August — is the celebration of independence from control by Moscow that the former Soviet Union republic declared in 1991.
"I spoke with our president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about how important football is to distract," Ukraine football federation president Andriy Pavelko said in June about the commitment to restart. "We spoke about how it would be possible that football could help us to think about the future."
No competitive football has been played in Ukraine since mid-December, when the league paused for a scheduled midwinter break.
Games were due to resume on 25 February,
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