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🗣️ Statement from Shakhtar CEO Serhii Palkin on the potential return of Russia to international FIFA tournaments. "The position from FIFA President Gianni Infantino regarding the possible return of Russian teams to international competitions represents a complete detachment from reality and I am profoundly disappointed by it. "The reality is this: we have been surviving a full scale war for four years. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Cities have been destroyed. Civilian, sporting, energy and heating infrastructure has been devastated. The lives of millions of people has been shattered. "I want to publicly ask Mr Infantino: What led him to make such a statement at this moment? And why, after four years of war, has he not once come to Ukraine to see with his own eyes what is happening here? "Let him come and see how people live. How children play football in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kyiv and Lviv - under air-raid sirens, next to bomb shelters, under the constant threat of missiles and drones. "I invite Mr Infantino to attend our first match in February. Let him speak with our players - with Dmytro Riznyk, who lost his brother in the war, and with Denys Tvardovskyi, whose father was also killed defending Ukraine. "Just yesterday, 16 Ukrainian miners were killed when a Russian drone hit the bus they were travelling in. Many of them were supporters of FC Shakhtar. This horror does not stop. "And a statement about the return of Russian football is not a 'step towards peace'. It is a continuation of this horror. It is an attempt to pretend that war and aggression do not exist. "Football cannot exist outside reality. And it has no right to turn a blind eye to evil. "Mr Infantino should also reflect on this: by supporting the return of Russia to international competitions, he would be making not only a sporting decision, but a political and moral one. "And such a decision carries responsibility - including responsibility for complicity in the silencing of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia against Ukraine."