Igor Denisov, the former captain of the Russian national team, has publicly spoken out strongly against the war in Ukraine. The former midfielder, who ended his career in 2019, realizes that his statements can get him into big trouble, but he won’t let that stop him.
“These events are catastrophic. It’s horrific. I don’t know if I’ll go to jail or be killed for this, but I’m telling it like it is,” Denisov said in an interview on the Armenian-Russian YouTube channel. sports journalist Nobel Arustamyan.
Denisov, Russia’s captain from 2012 to 2016, wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin asking for an end to the war. “During the third or fourth day of the war, I recorded a video message. I got down on my knees to ask for peace. I offered the video everywhere, but unfortunately no medium wanted to broadcast it.”
His statements put the 54-time international in danger. The Russian parliament recently passed a law that makes it a crime to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Up to 15 years in prison can be imposed on people who spread “fake news” or take public action that discredits the military.
Denisov played for the Russian national team between 2008 and 2016, of which twelve times as captain. As a club he played for FC Zenit, Anzhi Makhachkala, Dynamo Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow.
More Russian (former) sportsmen and women spoke out against the war, but rarely in such fierce terms as Denisov. Tennis player Andrey Rublev wrote “no war” on a camera lens shortly after the war started in February.
