‘Nobody’s going to back down’: Former NHL All-Star Alexei Zhitnik, from the front lines in Ukraine
When the siren screams, you have less than 10 minutes to find shelter. Grab your ID, passport and whatever you need to keep yourself warm in the frigid Kyiv night.
Leave the rest behind.
It’s 23 flights of stairs from the apartment to the street and then there’s a rush of people heading toward the bomb shelter that used to be a parking garage.
Packed between the concrete pillars, you huddle and wait. You listen to the siren, praying that silence breaks the cry — and not more explosions from rockets you’ve seen in the sky.
In the crush of fellow Ukrainians, it doesn’t matter that the ID you hold carries the name of one of the most beloved hockey players in the country’s history. It doesn’t matter that you played 1,085 NHL games for five different teams or that you were a two-time All-Star. It doesn’t matter that you once wore the Russian sweater, winning an Olympic silver medal — or that you finished your playing days with Dynamo Moscow.
That country is now dropping bombs on the city you grew up in, a homeland you refuse to leave.
“This is not about sports. It’s about defending your country,” says Alexei Zhitnik. “It’s not show-business anymore.”
Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, Zhitnik has helped in the effort to defend his country however he is able. The longtime NHL defenseman has lived in Ukraine since he retired and is now the president of Sokil Kyiv, the storied Ukrainian hockey team that he grew up playing for in the country’s capital.
For the past two weeks though, he has been just like every other Ukrainian citizen ready to die for his country.
“God has the power over what’s going to happen with you,” Zhitnik says. “Basically, if something is going to happen, something is going to happen … a lot of people have died already, especially civilians.”
Two rockets recently hit a television tower and damaged the nearby Palace of Sports, the team’s arena in the heart of Kyiv, he says. A friend filmed the explosion of the second rocket hitting the tower, next to the rink Zhitnik has played on since he was young and where his No. 13 now hangs. Another video following the explosion shows four scorched bodies, as smoke rises into burning trees. The hands of one body, facing the sky, reach out as though trying to block an unseen force. The bodies lay near the shattered, blackened façade of the arena — across the street from a seared television tower. Sirens wail in the distance as burning ash drifts around the arriving emergency responders.
“It doesn’t matter, ice rink, hotel or medical building — anything can happen,” Zhitnik says. “Nobody really expected it was going to happen in real life. Especially in the 21st century, in the middle of Europe. And it’s not a one-day, two-day army operation. It’s a war.”
Zhitnik and his family remain in the middle of it. As a 49-year-old, he must stay in the country. Under martial law, no man between the ages of 18 and 60 is allowed to leave. But regardless, Zhitnik says he wouldn’t go.
“I’m going to do whatever I can to try to help,” he says.
His wife, Lyudmila, has vowed to stay by his side. Her mother and brother have stayed, too. Zhitnik’s identical twin brother, Dmitri, and older sister, Anna, have also remained.
Since the invasion began, Zhitnik has traveled across Ukraine aiding in the safe passage of women and children to neighboring countries, like Poland. More than 2 million Ukrainians have left the country since the invasion began, according to the United Nations. They provide food, beverages and gasoline to people who need it at the checkpoints mile after mile, marked by concrete barricades as Ukrainian special forces check IDs, search vehicles, and question where travelers are coming from and where they are going.
Zhitnik communicates with friends in the Ukrainian special forces to find out where they can be of most help. He moves goods and people for the army as needed, while still working to get children and women out of the country.
Some of his friends in the eastern part of Ukraine are providing food, water and medical supplies to Ukrainian troops. Others have joined local defense groups, outside of the army, which patrol streets inside in the cities. Some have taken up arms. Zhitnik requested weapons but was told he had to wait until those with military training or experience in combat were armed first. Citizens with their own guns, like hunting rifles, now carry them in case they come into contact with Russian troops.
Overseas in New York, Zhitnik’s adult son and daughter check in with their father constantly, trying to make sure he is all right while watching the news unfold on television. But the images they are see are nothing like the reality he is witnessing on the ground, he says. Zhitnik has watched rockets fly overhead as he’s driven the streets of Kyiv. He can hear the bombs exploding and see the smoke rising. He’s seeing the firsthand images of carnage that, he says, people beyond Ukraine’s borders can’t quite comprehend. He believes the goal is to exterminate the Ukrainian people.
“They are saying they hit the army points,” he says. “But I was driving, and I saw the buildings. I heard everything. I saw two rockets flying over my head.”
Throughout the invasion, Zhitnik has been in touch with Russian friends from the game, who he says, seem to be swayed by the rhetoric that justifies the invasion and seems to sanitize the devastation of the attacks.
“For me, I don’t understand how those Russian people don’t know what’s going on,” he says. “They ask me what’s going on and I say ‘fellas, just open the Internet.’ … They think Putin’s doing everything right. Like zombie, zombie, zombie.
“I know people for a long time. I just can’t believe they’re thinking they do right. They didn’t know how many people already died, on both sides. … And they have no idea what’s going on.”
But in the NHL, where he spent 18 years, Zhitnik says he is not surprised that more Russian players haven’t spoken out. He believes that many are afraid to speak out, knowing the trouble that could bring.
“If somebody from the NHL, Russian players, are going to say something against the war, they’re going to be in trouble. They’re just afraid,” he says. “I mean, some people are stupid. I understand that. Some people are zombies. They have no idea. And some people are just afraid.”
Other Ukrainian NHL players have tried to share the realities of what is happening in their country.
Ruslan Fedotenko, who grew up in Kyiv and won two Stanley Cups, is watching the devastation unfold from Tampa Bay as he tries to stay in contact with his family and friends.
“For what?” he said, of the devastation unfolding in his homeland. “It’s just mind-boggling. It’s surreal.”
Dmitri Khristich is in Poltava, about 200 miles from Kyiv. The former Washington Capital — who scored more points in the NHL than any other Ukraine-born player — has pleaded with the international community to send military support and close the skies over Ukraine.
“You’re going to let us be killed,” he said.
As an 8 p.m. curfew falls across Ukraine, Zhitnik echoes those pleas.
He believes the Ukrainians can hold their country, if only they can stop the rockets falling from the sky. He can see on the TV set he’s watching as he talks. He’s seen on the streets he drives each day.
“Everybody understands that if they close the sky over Ukraine, we’re going to be great on the ground,” he says. “On the ground we can do fine.”
And while he doesn’t know how long the fighting will last, Zhitnik says he will remain in Ukraine until the war ends, trying to help however he can.
Through another night, indoors, he listens for sirens while praying for silence. Regardless of what comes — or at what cost — Zhitnik believes his homeland will endure.
“We’re going to win — that’s for sure,” he says. “What price we’re going to pay for that? It’s tough to predict. But nobody’s going to back down.”
