Football league returns in Ukraine after Russian invasion

Six months since the last season was suspended after the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s Premier League (UPL) has got under way in Kyiv.

Competitive football returned to the country on Tuesday, 23 August, when Shakhtar Donetsk met Metalist Kharkiv at the capital’s Olympic Stadium.

Shakhtar Donetsk captain Taras Stepanenko said: “For 90 minutes, I forgot about the war. After the first half, I sat in the locker room and thought, ‘We have already played 45 minutes, very nice, I didn’t hear the alarm in the city’.”

Sign up to our newsletters.