If a man’s life can sometimes turn to horror in a handful of days, it also sometimes knows how to do it with a touch of irony. Tuesday, February 22, Oleksandr Usyk is still a boxer, worried about the potential escalation of violence between his Ukraine and Russia. In London, this huge football fan films himself all smiles in the opulent stands of the Stamford Bridge stadium, where Chelsea and Lille face off in the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Six days later, while the Blues have seen their owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, withdraw from the management of the club, the boxer is back in Ukraine, where he now posts news at the most close to the armed conflict between its people and the Russian army.
A tennis player and a biathlete equally committed
“Some wrote about me that I had fled Ukraine, it’s false, he assured in a first video, posted on Instagram on February 24. I had a business trip, but I’m back home. I am very moved and worried for my country and for our people. »
Like many Ukrainian athletes or former athletes who have taken up arms — such as boxers Vitali Klitschko (also mayor of Kiev), Wladimir Klitschko and Vasiliy Lomachenko, tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, MMA fighter Yaroslav Amosov or biathlete Dmytro Pidruchnyi — l he engagement of Oleksandr Usyk in this conflict testifies to the extraordinary mobilization of personalities, and in particular of the Ukrainian sportsmen around this conflict, and of their solidarity resistance vis-a-vis the Russian advance on their territory.
In the Telegram loop that he maintains with 21,000 subscribers, Oleksandr Usyk has also shared a photomontage featuring various Ukrainian boxing personalities, repelling the Russian army with their gloves.
WBA, WBO and IBF world heavyweight champion after his clear victory over boxing superstar Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk, who was seen on social media guns in hand after signing up for the Force of Ukrainian territorial defence, is not a “soldier” like the others. Followed by 1.7 million followers on Instagram, he documents his experience on the spot and uses his large audience to call for an end to the fighting. A video posted this Sunday, in which he speaks directly to Vladimir Putin, has been viewed nearly 4 million times on the social network.
“I address the people of Russia,” he said. If we consider ourselves brothers, Orthodox, do not let your children and your army go to our country, do not fight with us. I am also addressing President Vladimir Putin. You can stop this war. Please sit down and negotiate with us without ultimatums and demands. Our children, our wives, our grandmothers are hiding in the cellars… We are here in our own country, we cannot help but defend ourselves. »
In the past, Usyk’s positions on the Russian-Ukrainian conflicts have not always made him a popular figure in his country. For example, his ambiguity detected by some Ukrainians on the question of the annexation of Crimea, where he is from and on which he has always spoken with caution, where some of his compatriots expected him to become a symbol of resistance. This is no doubt what he is today, leading a very different fight on the Ukrainian front from those he has known so far.
