Everton's Ukrainian star Vitaliy Mykolenko has revealed his father is part of a military unit fighting Vladimir Putin ’s invaders back home.
The international defender, who has won 26 caps for his country, joined Everton from Dynamo Kyiv in January – just weeks before Russia invaded his homeland.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine before tonight’s Match for Peace between the Goodison Park club and his former team, he revealed his family are still in Kyiv, where his father is a serviceman.
Mykolenko, 23, said: “I cannot explain why, how, it has happened.
“We had a good life in Ukraine, we had a good country.
“My family is still in Ukraine, everyone – my uncle, my dad, my mother. They are OK. [My father] is military but he is in Kyiv.
“He is working in a military unit, but he is not going to the east of Ukraine [where Russia has claimed military control over several regions].”
Mykolenko, who admitted he worried “every day” about his family, added: “I am proud of him. I love them, my father, my mother.”
Last season he embraced his fellow countryman, the then-Manchester City player Oleksandr Zinchenko, when they were on opposite sides for a Premier League match played in Merseyside just two days after the Russian invasion. Both the players were applauded by the two set of fans, many of them flying Ukrainian flags.
Mykolenko said: “We had just a few words about our families.
“I told him about my father, about my mum, and he told me about his family.
“Before the game I cried when I saw the pictures [of the flags] in the stadium. It was so, so emotional.”
Last night’s charity pre-season match raised funds for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
It was the latest in a series of peace games the Kyiv club have played across Europe since the war began in February, but the first held in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees across Merseyside were given free tickets for the match.
