Shakhtar Donetsk on playing in London, Russian rockets and ‘Invest in Ukraine’

Shakhtar Donetsk have set up shop in London at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge to show the world that Ukraine remains open for business despite five years of aggression from Russia, their CEO tells City AM.

Serhii Palkin, the long-serving CEO of Shakhtar Donetsk, has just joined our call when the grim reality of trying to run Ukraine’s top football club while under Russian bombardment intrudes. 

“At this moment we have an air raid siren but I will not go to the shelter. I will stay here in the office because it’s not possible to work if you go every time to the shelter,” he says wearily. “It’s been our life for five years, Frank. Five years.”

This week he is trekking from Kyiv to London – a 12-hour drive followed by a flight – to see his team take on Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium.

Shakhtar have been itinerant since Russian incursions in the west of Ukraine forced them out of their home in 2014. They play domestic games in Kyiv but have taken their European fixtures on the road, to Germany, Poland and, this season, west London.  

One of the world’s football capitals gives the club and its billionaire owner, Rinat Akhmetov, the platform they are seeking to remind people that Ukraine is, in every sense, fighting on.

“To play Champions League matches in London, it’s to send messages to the world what’s going on in Ukraine,” says Palkin. 

“Because I understand that for five years, the whole of Europe, maybe the whole world may be a little bit tired of war in Ukraine, but the problem is that you cannot be tired when Russia kills children and women and destroys our country completely.” 

He adds: “We would like to use this to open the door to the whole world to show that Ukraine is not just in survival mode. We are in a mode to recover and to grow.”

‘Russia targets Ukrainian businesses to try to break the economy. Our answer is to keep investing’

Akhmetov’s company SCM appears on Shakhtar’s shirts along with the message “Invest in Ukraine”. It is not so much a slogan as a call to arms, and London’s status as a financial hub represents an ideal place to declare it.

“Investing in Ukraine today isn’t about quick returns. It’s about security, for Ukraine and for Europe, whether that’s energy, food or defence,” says SCM’s director of international and investor relations, Jock Mendoza-Wilson. “Every investment makes Ukraine stronger, and a stronger Ukraine means a safer Europe. What happens here matters far beyond our borders.

“We don’t ask anyone to do what we are not doing ourselves. Since the full-scale invasion, SCM’s businesses have invested more than $4.3bn in Ukraine. Russia is targeting Ukrainian businesses to try to break the economy and drive people out. Our answer is to keep investing, keep building and keep people in work.”

Shakhtar hosted their first Champions League game in London last month, beating AEK Athens 3-1. SCM says the response to its messaging has been “very good”. Adds Medoza-Wilson: “The conversations are no longer about emergency aid. They are about real projects.”

There is a delicious irony in Shakhtar, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, planting its flag at a club that was synonymous with Russia for almost 20 years – until Roman Abramovich was sanctioned and forced to sell after the 2022 invasion. 

Palkin insists that playing at Chelsea stems from good relations with Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, who led the £2.5bn buyout of Abramovich, that were forged when Shakhtar sold star winger Mykhailo Mudryk to the Blues in 2023. 

Why Champions League matches are a lifeline for cash-starved Shakhtar

It is also a means of lifting the spirits of the 50,000-strong Ukrainian community in Greater London, many of whom were displaced by the war.

“For Ukrainian people living in these circumstances it’s very difficult, because 99 per cent of news they receive is negative,” says Palkin. “When we play there we are trying to switch the attention from war to something peaceful. It’s an opportunity to give positive emotions to them.”

Merely reaching the Champions League is something of a miracle, given Shakhtar’s unique challenges, and, with eight-figure prize money guaranteed, represents a vital financial lifeline.

Says Palkin: “We don’t have ticket sales, we don’t have TV rights, we don’t have commercial partnerships, and it’s all because of war. We have two sources of income – sales of our players and Uefa bonuses. It’s very, very important to play in the Champions League.”

Trying to keep a football club going – and growing – has, in a strange way, also provided Shakhtar’s staff and players with a distraction from military assault, even when it proves impossible to ignore.

“One month ago I was in this office, we had a meeting of the directors, and 100m from us a Russian rocket arrived and destroyed completely a building like [it was] nothing,” says Palkin. “People died. And when that happens, to switch your brain to mode of development is very difficult because people are in shock.”

He adds: “I have in my mind always one rule. I want to be better every day. Yes, we have difficult moments associated with war, and it impacts everything – you don’t have lights nine hours per day, you can’t go shopping because of air raid signals – but if you think just about this you will destroy yourself mentally. 

“Therefore, every day you should put out all this negative situation and think, okay, what can we do better today? And this gives me some kind of energy.”