How war destroyed sport in eastern Ukraine
Russia's war changed everything. Occupation, fighting, and destruction forced clubs to relocate or cease to exist entirely. Stadiums and sports complexes were destroyed or left to decay, leaving an entire generation of children without access to sporting infrastructure. Here is how the war reshaped sport in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and what remains of east of Ukraine’s once-powerful sporting ecosystem.
A football city without football
Donetsk was once a city of roses, mining glory, and football. In 1936, one of Eastern Europe's most decorated clubs, Shakhtar, was founded here. In Euro 2012, its top-tier stadium of that time hosted powerhouse national teams like England and France, alongside performances by Beyoncé and Rihanna.
Today, that is in the past. War and occupation in 2014 altered Donetsk and the lives of its residents beyond recognition. A stadium that once held more than 50,000 fans now stands silent and desolate. Deprived of proper care, the Donbas Arena is gradually deteriorating, as is the park that surrounds it. Alongside the club, hundreds of thousands of residents fled, now scattered across the globe.
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‘For our family, Shakhtar is more than a football club — it’s our connection to home. When I was a child, my father used to take me to home matches. At first, we went to the RSC Olimpiyskiy — Shakhtar’s former home ground — and later to the Donbas Arena. I still remember how I felt when I first stepped into the new stadium. It was so majestic that I still get goosebumps just thinking about it,’ recalls Ihor, a Donetsk native forced to leave the city due to the war in 2014.
FC Shakhtar Donetsk gained global acclaim as one of European football’s most effective launchpads for talents. The club’s long-term strategy centred on signing young players and easing their transition into European football. This approach proved successful: the club earned hundreds of millions of euros while introducing the world to stars such as Fred, Alex Teixeira, Douglas Costa, Fernandinho, Willian, and others. In 2009, the team lifted the UEFA Cup after defeating Werder Bremen 2–1 in a historic final — a triumph heavily driven by its Brazilian players.
Yet foreign players were only part of the story. Until 2014, Shakhtar’s youth academy was based at the ultra-modern Kirsha training facility in Donetsk. After the war broke out, the club overhauled its training system. Young prospects now train mostly in Kyiv Oblast. Kirsha was damaged by shelling and looted.
Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk, Benfica’s Heorhiy Sudakov and Anatoliy Trubin, long-standing defensive stalwart Mykola Matviyenko, and Ukrainian football legend Yaroslav Rakitskyi are all graduates of Shakhtar’s academy.
Donetsk has now endured 12 years of Russian occupation. One can only guess how many children during this time were denied the opportunity to make a name for themselves in football.
Concurrently, Russia has attempted to appropriate the city’s sporting history. In 2020, a clone club bearing Shakhtar’s name and crest appeared in occupied Donetsk and was subsequently integrated into the Russian football system.
Beyond football
Football is only one chapter of Donetsk Oblast’s sporting heritage ruined by the war. In 2014, Donetsk’s main ice hockey and basketball venue — the Druzhba Arena — was looted and set on fire, suffering further damage later.
Dozens of other sites met a similar fate. One of Ukraine’s largest indoor complexes, Illichivets in Mariupol, the Altair Ice Arena in Druzhkivka, the Donbas Equicentre in Donetsk, the Kramatorsk Sports Complex, the Volodymyr Boyko Stadium in Mariupol, and the Metalurh Stadium in Bakhmut were all damaged or fully ceased to function as a result of the war.
Along with physical facilities, the war changed the fate of professional clubs. Some vanished entirely, while others lost their professional status or were forced to leave their home cities, playing for years far away from their supporters.
Luhansk Oblast suffers the same fate
In neighbouring Luhansk Oblast, nearly fully occupied by Russia, the situation is no better. As with Donetsk, the oblast’s flagship football team, Zorya Luhansk, was forced to flee its home city due to the war. The club was unable to celebrate its centenary at its home venue, the Avanhard Stadium.
In the occupied territories, Russian authorities set up a copycat club under the same name and integrated it into their own football system. Luhansk’s Avanhard Stadium, once home to the genuine Zorya, lies in decay. With negligible maintenance, its infrastructure is slowly deteriorating, and the stadium itself is used mostly for local tournaments and events backing the Russian occupation authorities.
While Zorya managed to survive displacement, another of Luhansk Oblast’s iconic clubs folded.
In 2015, after unsuccessful attempts to preserve the squad amidst the city’s occupation, FC Stal Alchevsk withdrew from the First League and dissolved. The occupation forces subsequently established a club called Metalurh in Alchevsk to participate in Russian-organised tournaments, serving propaganda purposes rather than athletic ones.
Sporting infrastructure in other towns across Luhansk Oblast has also suffered heavily. The Sievierodonetsk Ice Sports Palace, the Olymp Sports Complex in Kreminna, the Budivelnyk Sports Complex and Shakhtar Stadium in Lysychansk, as well as local sports halls and youth academies, have been destroyed, damaged, or abandoned.
Behind each of these buildings lie the personal stories of people for whom sport was an integral part of their lives.
A lost generation
The war stole far more than stadiums and clubs from eastern Ukraine. Thousands of children lost the opportunity to train, develop talent, and pursue a future in sport. Today, it is impossible to count how many potential footballers, basketball players, track and field athletes, or future Olympic champions were deprived of their chance by occupation and war. Destroyed arenas can be rebuilt, but lost years of childhood cannot.
Yet the resilience of Shakhtar and Zorya shows that occupation cannot erase history and identity. Without home grounds, genuine Ukrainian clubs live on, representing their cities from afar, while occupational clones remain futile attempts to steal someone else’s legacy.
Sport in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts faces its darkest hour. Yet memories of packed stands and historic victories endure — as does hope that elite sport will one day return home.