Ex-world champion in three weight categories Vasily Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs) spoke about the war in Ukraine in an interview with Top Rank.
“I never thought that I would survive the war in my lifetime. This is terrible. It's very terrible. When the war started, I was in Greece. Then I couldn't return home because all flights were cancelled. It was a very long journey. I flew to Romania, after that I went by car to the river, got on a boat and returned home.
It was the second day of the war. The next morning I went to the military, received weapons, clothes and began to prepare for war. For myself, I realized that I could not leave my home, my country. You just forget about your goals, your dreams.
At this moment, the mind is focused on the family, on the people around you, on how to save life. No one will understand this until they go through it themselves. It's very hard when you go to bed and hear sirens, you run to the basement. And no one knows how long it will take to stay there. This moment changes our life in the country.
When you are an adult, you understand this situation, you can adapt to war. But children... For the first two or three months, a large number of cities and towns in our country were captured. Because of this, there was no understanding of what would happen next, no. But the moment came when the situation began to clear up, our military managed to recapture the territories, we went on the offensive. Then it became clear that everything should be fine.”
Watch this story: Lomachenko turned down a fight with Davis?
Recall that Lomachenko will fight Jemaine Ortiz on October 29 in New York.