Handsome Ukrainian Tennis Star Trades Rackets For A Rifle
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WARSAW — They are more accustomed to holding tennis rackets. But now, instead of going to battle on the court, three of Ukraine’s most prominent tennis stars — Sergiy Stakhovsky, Andriy Medvedev and Alexandr Dolgopolov — have taken up arms to defend their country amid Russia’s invasion.
This week, Mr. Stakhovsky, 36, and Mr. Medvedev, 47, met in Kyiv prepared for war.
Steven Erlanger and
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BRUSSELS — Ukraine and Russia are engaged in intermittent negotiations to end a brutal war now in its third week. But despite signs of progress, Western officials have little optimism that the talks have reached a serious stage or even confronted the most difficult issues.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has raised hopes with recent statements that seem to accept that his country will not be a part of NATO, despite the alliance’s promise in 2008 to accept it one day and even though the Ukrainian constitution was amended three years ago to make membership in both NATO and the European Union national goals. Amidst hollowed-out buildings, debris and scattered belongings once housed in a residential building hit by a Russian missile in Kyiv, residents tried to salvage what they could from an attack. Russia has continued its widespread shelling of Ukrainian cities, hitting residential and military targets alike.
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President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday made his first public appearance since he ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine last month, addressing a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of Russians at Moscow’s largest stadium.
The Luzhniki arena was covered with posters that read “For a world without Nazism” — a nod to one of Mr. Putin’s stated justifications for launching the war in Ukraine, the false claim that Ukraine is run by Nazis.
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