At 5 a.m. in Kyiv, the city is still wrapped in darkness. Russian attacks have caused blackouts across Ukraine’s capital, leaving behind collapsed buildings, shattered power infrastructure and bodies buried under rubble.
As daylight slowly returns, residents try to make the most of every hour of sunlight — stocking up on basic supplies, searching for safer shelters, and adapting their lives to the rhythm of the war.
That reality is something Olympian Vladyslav Heraskevych has felt in his own skin. Speaking from Germany, where he has spent the past few months training due to the difficult conditions back home, he described a country struggling to function in the dark. “In Chernihiv (Eastern Ukraine), a lot of facilities are destroyed, and if you talk about these days, the main struggle is electricity,” he said. “In Kyiv, it’s a lot of districts, and my district, where I normally live, is currently without any electricity. It’s a full blackout.”
With temperatures in Kyiv sinking to nearly 6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-14 Celsius), the city’s residents have been forced to retreat beneath the surface. Subway stations double as shelters, basements have become bedrooms, and survival dictates the rhythm of the capital. Russian strikes have crippled vital infrastructure, leaving many without heating and in the dark, part of what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy describes as a “cynical Russian terror.”
For athletes, the cold is only part of the struggle. Training schedules are constantly interrupted by the sounds of war, turning preparation into an exercise in patience and uncertainty. “When it could be like attacks with drones or with rockets,” Heraskevych said. “At this time, you cannot do training normally. It’s forbidden … So, (is) like you came to the training, air attack warnings (sirens start), and you need to wait (until) when it’s finished, and then you can start again.”
With the Milan Games approaching, that reality pushed several Ukrainian athletes beyond their borders. Austria, Germany, South Korea, and even Lake Placid, N.Y., became temporary homes where they could prepare.
Yet amid the devastation, the Olympics stand as a source of hope for the Ukrainian team. The delegation of 103 members — 46 athletes, 42 coaches, doctors and technical staff, and 15 members of the national team’s headquarters — are united by a shared purpose that extends beyond medals.
“We all want peace and at least have a ceasefire during (the) Olympics, because usually it was a reason in the past for countries to stop fighting. … We really want this ceasefire for our country,” Heraskevych said. (Last week, President Donald Trump said that Russia had agreed to a temporary pause in missile strikes, but it resumed attacks on Tuesday.)
Heraskevych became the first Ukrainian athlete to compete in skeleton at the Winter Olympics when he participated in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, where he finished 12th in the competition, and then in the 2022 Beijing Games, where he finished 18th. In Beijing, amid the shadow of the Russian invasion of his country, he captured the world’s attention by holding up a sign reading “No War in Ukraine.” He will carry his nation’s flag in Friday’s opening ceremony.
“At a time of full-scale war, and especially at this hard time for all Ukrainians, who are now sitting in the blackouts in Ukraine, it’s very special, and it’s very important to show (the) Ukrainian flag, to remind the world what’s going on in our country,” Heraskevych said.
In 2022, Heraskevych raced down the icy track at the Yanqing Sliding Centre during the Beijing Games, striving to shave fractions of a second on one of skeleton’s toughest courses. Weeks later, he found himself in a completely different arena — a war zone — distributing medical supplies as air-defense systems shot down rockets overhead. Driving more than 150 kilometers from Kyiv to his father’s hometown of Zhytomyr, he loaded a van with food and medical supplies, delivering them to communities caught in the first brutal waves of the war. He also traveled to Chernihiv and reunited with children in the local stadium.
“We did some training days in these territories, in the cities which were really heavily damaged by the war. Our idea was to bring some happiness for the kids, because I truly believe that kids do not deserve to witness all of that madness,” Heraskevych said. “From this training camp, some kids were really excited about skeleton, and now we have our youth team who are competing in the Europa Cup … and these kids, they’re future Olympians.”
Biathlete Khrystyna Dmytrenko poses inside the destroyed ski base in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo / Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Nearly four years into the war, the country’s infrastructure bears deep scars. Roads have deteriorated, rubble lines the streets, and for athletes across disciplines, safe spaces to train have all but vanished.
“It’s sometimes hard to travel around the city, also because you cannot go to the underground. You cannot travel by bus. Sometimes it’s really hard to just follow your normal schedule … Mainly, air attacks are committed at night, so you also cannot sleep normally, and of course, it puts some influence on all your preparation,” Heraskevych explained.
Moving through Ukraine’s cities has become risky. Just last week, a Russian drone struck a crowded passenger train in northeastern Ukraine, killing at least five people and injuring several others, according to local officials.
“It’s very hard to be concentrated 100 percent on the competitions and to give all yourself for the competitions when you know at home your friends are dying, or like your home district is being bombed,” he said. “It’s really hard to be fully committed to the sport at this time. … Mentally, people are very tired.”
Olympian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, center, is seen at a sporting event for children in 2022, in Chernihiv, Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of Vladyslav Heraskevych)
Beyond the anguish of leaving loved ones behind in a country at war, Ukrainian athletes also carry a deep frustration with the International Olympic Committee for allowing Russian competitors, designated as Individual Neutral Athletes, at the Games.
Russian and Belarusian athletes are being allowed to participate under strict conditions: no national flag, no anthem, and no official team affiliation, a policy shaped by the ongoing war in Ukraine and past doping scandals. The IOC has cleared 13 Russian athletes to compete under these rules, a decision that continues to rankle Ukrainian athletes and officials. For Heraskevych, the idea of neutrality in this context is difficult to accept.
“I don’t really believe that it’s possible to separate athletes from politics, especially in Russia,” he said.
Heraskevych’s remarks echo a formal complaint issued by the Ukrainian government in 2024, which included a list of athletes allegedly linked to the Kremlin. Among the most high-profile cases cited was swimmer Evgeny Rylov, who in 2022 appeared at a public rally in support of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. During the event, Rylov wore a jacket bearing a “Z” on the chest. It’s a letter not found in the Russian alphabet, but one that has become a symbol of support for Russian troops after being used to mark armored vehicles operating inside Ukraine. The appearance led World Aquatics to suspend him for nine months.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Rylov again drew attention when he posted a photograph on Instagram showing him shaking hands with President Putin, fueling criticism from Ukrainian officials and athletes.
The Russian Olympic Committee, currently under suspension by the IOC, did not respond to requests for comment.
Biathletes Yekateryna Mashtalier, 18, Mykola Dorofeiev, 16, Maksym Kravchenko, 17, and Nazar Kravchenko, 12, warm up before a training session at the ski base in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo / Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Keeping sports going in Ukraine
Ukrainian athletes have relied heavily on the support of nonprofit organizations. One is Athletes for Ukraine, founded in 2022 by former biathlete Jens Steinigen, who won gold with Germany’s relay team at the 1992 Games in Albertville.
“Last year, we transported approximately 500 tons of aid supplies to Ukraine using 25 large trucks and distributed them there. We also purchased a fire engine in Germany and delivered it to Kharkiv,” Steinigen said. “Our volunteers organize and carry out numerous smaller aid transports themselves.”
Steinigen said the work is dangerous, pointing out that one of his volunteers, Dmytro Konstantinov, was killed by a mine. “There are airstrikes from Russia every day. Nowhere in Ukraine is 100 percent safe,” he said.
Athletes for Ukraine supports the Sports Ski Base of the Olympic Reserve, a biathlon and cross-country skiing school in Chernihiv, just 60 kilometers from the Russian border. It also provides sports equipment and organizes training camps for children and young athletes in Ruhpolding, Germany. Heraskevych serves as one of the ambassadors for this cause, helping bridge the gap between Ukrainian youth and international support.
“Last year, when I was in Chernihiv training with the children at the sports school, the training session had to be cut short after 30 minutes on a Saturday afternoon due to an air raid siren. The risk of being killed or injured is always present,” Steinigen said.
During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Athletes for Ukraine partnered with the British government to launch a campaign highlighting Ukrainian athletes and coaches who had been killed in the war. “When we were preparing the campaign, there were just over 450 victims from the sports sector. By the time the (Paris) Olympics began, the number had already risen to over 500,” he said.
In honor of the athletes who have died, the determination to keep sports going in Ukraine continues. The Sports Ski Base remains a rare place where cross-country skiers and biathletes can train. In winter, athletes practice on snow-covered routes, while during the rest of the year they switch to roller skis on an asphalt course scarred by explosions.
Those efforts have been witnessed firsthand by Olha Nikolaienko, who fled Ukraine in 2022 with her young son and now works from Switzerland as the head of communications for the Ukrainian Athletics Federation. She said that the effort to keep programs functioning remains strong, such as in Sumy, a city dangerously close to the front lines where athletes used to hold indoor track and field championships.
“They tried to develop track and field there even now. The 400-meter Ukrainian record holder is training there. There are also many children’s groups. It’s unbelievable how they manage it,” she said.
Ukrainians hope that the country’s delegation in Milan will reflect their enduring spirit.
“I truly want people just to pay more attention to what’s going on in Ukraine, because it’s a huge scale of war. It’s much more than any other war in the world right now. It’s a lot of victims of this war from both sides,” Heraskevych said. “I hope it will be a great celebration of sports and, of course, support Ukraine.”
A young biathlete trains outside the destroyed ski base in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo / Julia Demaree Nikhinson)