Two more athletes refuse to return to Ukraine
Ukrainian karate athletes Evgeny and Darya Pilipyuk have been kicked out of the country’s Karate Federation for refusing to return home after taking part in an international youth tournament, the sports governing body has said.
The athletes were stripped of their membership in the organization for “non-return to Ukraine and violation of the rules of mobilization,” according to a statement posted on the federation’s Facebook page earlier this week.
The governing body also said it is planning to seek a lifetime disqualification from the World Karate Federation (WFK) for the Pilipyuks, as well as the annulment of their awards, adding that their actions are “damaging the reputation of Ukrainian karate.”
The 2024 Karate 1 Youth League, organized by the WKF, took place in early December in Venice, Italy.
Aleksandr Pikulin, the president of the Karate Federation of the city of Chernovtsi, told the media that he trained Evgeny Pilipyuk for 19 years and feels partly responsible for what happened.
“They did not get in touch with me, we tried to contact in different ways, through other athletes, we wanted to persuade him to return, but the efforts were in vain,” he said.
Earlier this month, Larisa Zhalinskaya, a Ukrainian rower and former member of Ukraine’s national team, told RT that she fled the country and moved to Russia via Poland and Belarus. She claimed that she was forced to join the Ukrainian National Guard amid the conflict with Russia.
Last week, the coach of the Croatian national gymnastics team, Vladimir Madzarevic, told local media that Ukrainian Olympics silver medalist Ilya Kovtun was planning to change his sports citizenship to represent the Balkan state.
In November, the head coach of the hockey club Sokil Kiev, Oleg Shafarenko, said that two of the team’s players did not return to Ukraine after the Continental Cup in Italy. Media reports emerged that defender Vladimir Aleksyuk and forward Roman Blagoy applied for political asylum in the EU.
Kiev has been struggling to find new recruits to replenish its losses amid the conflict with Russia. The mobilization efforts in Ukraine have faced widespread draft evasion and desertions. Last year, the government in Kiev overhauled its national mobilization system to address the shortage of military personnel. The measures included lowering the draft age from 27 to 25, tightening the mobilization rules, and imposing harsher penalties for draft evasion.
