A contingent of largely Brazilian players and their families have managed to leave Ukraine after the Russian invasion, one of the country’s top clubs Shakhtar Donetsk said on Monday.
The group had been hunkered down in a Kyiv hotel basement before their flight overland into Moldova and then Romania, where many of them posted on social media expressing relief and horror.
“Shaktar’s Brazilian players (they have 13 in their squad) have left the country,” the club said, adding that other foreign Ukraine-based stars from Dynamo Kyiv had gone with them.
“After a 16-hour journey we have crossed the Ukraine border and are on our way to Bucharest, where we will fly to Brazil,” Matheus Assaf, the agent of Shakhtar player Vinicius Tobias, said.
The agent thanked Ukraine and Moldova’s football federations, as well as UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin for making their flight possible.