Fans of Kyiv Dynamo are changing stands for drones and guns

Hundreds of fans Kyiv dynamothe most successful team of Ukraine, exchanged scarves, flares and banners for military uniforms, drones and weapons, and together with the army of their country are fighting against the Russian occupier.

“Since December stationed in Bakhmut”count up EFE in the bar cornernext to the Kyiv Olympic Stadium and the meeting place of the ultras Dynamo, Andrey Korenivskywho runs an online business selling team supplies and joined the army as a volunteer last May.

Korenivsky, 39, who has been at the bottom where the most radical Dynamo fans meet since he was 14, took the step after the Ukrainian army forced invading Russian troops to withdraw from Kiev and its environs.

Prior to that, he worked as a coordinator of the humanitarian and military aid they received from fan movements from all over Europe at the bar where the club’s fans gather to watch the matches that Dynamo have been playing behind closed doors since this war over bomb threat.

Despite the lack of military experience, Korenivsky quickly learned to fly drones and took part in aerial reconnaissance missions last fallduring the liberation of the southern city of Kherson.

We have spent the last three months in Bakhmut, a Russian-besieged city in eastern Ukraine where the most intense fighting is taking place.

“Many Russian soldiers are ordinary prisoners who go on the offensive like zombies, stepping over the bodies of their dead comrades,” Korenivsky says of what he sees on the front lines, referring to prisoners recruited by the Wagner mercenary group that leads the Russian army. assault on Bakhmut.

Another fan of Dynamo, who took up Ukraine, – Yaroslav MovchunA 40-year-old farmer who enlisted in the military last February after seeing Russian troops reach about 10 kilometers from the farm where he lives with his family, between the capital and the city of Zhytomyr.

“At this distance, you have less than two hours to escape, and even if you have weapons at home, you won’t need them,” he says of the circumstances that led him to become a soldier.

After five days of hurried training with other volunteers Territory defense having no idea about the use of weapons, Movchun helped stop the Russian Army, driving Soviet RPG grenade launchers and NLAW light anti-tank weapons provided by the UK.

Helping to push the Russian occupiers out of the region, Movchun continued to train other volunteers in the use of these types of weapons, which he still does today.

Both Korenivsky and Movchun mourn the death of their teammates who fell defending their country on the front lines. The Dynamo ultras Facebook page has gone from photographs of flares and typhoid to a series of obituaries and fundraisers to fund the army.

Many of the Dynamo fans now battling Russia wear the stylized calligraphic “D” of their club’s crest on their uniforms.

“Dynamo is a national symbol, it is part of the history of our country, and we are proud of it,” Movchun says between walls decorated with paintings of club legends such as Valery Lobanovsky, Andrey Shevchenko and Sergey Rebrov from the bar Corner.

Both Korenivsky and Movchun yearn for the days when they could take to the field and travel with the team across Europe, and are calling for more military assistance from the West to quickly achieve the Ukrainian victory that has already ended the occupation of their country. the death in the war of his comrades in the stands of the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv.

(According to information from EFE)