Ironfist Military Days of Ukrainian Army Reservist Vitali Klitschko, Kiev Mayor and Forgotten Heavyweight Champion

Ironfist Military Days of Ukrainian Army Reservist Vitali Klitschko, Kiev Mayor and Forgotten Heavyweight Champion

By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent

 Kyiv, Ukraine (February 25th, 2022)–  Former World Heavyweight champion brothers Dr. Vitali Klitschko and Dr. Wladimir Klitschko are now fighting on the front lines in the Ukrainian Army reserve, as the war between the Russian Federation now rages in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, which are geographically situated on the Russian border.

 Russian military tanks and armored vehicles have advanced into the conflict and invaded Ukraine with a key battlefield advantage in arms, vehicles, and military personnel, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated Ukrainian territory is in fact entirely Russian territory.

Not since the late former World middleweight champion Dick Tiger (Richard Iheru) died fighting on the front lines for Biafra in Nigeria 55 years ago has a world champion wound up on the military front liens fighting for freedom of a nation in his own mind. Nigeria’s Eastern Region voted to secede in May 1967 and declared independence as the Republic of Biafra, which led to civil war. Tiger swore allegiance to the new republic and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Biafra morale corps. Lieutenant Dick Tiger lost his property and money in the war, and he was banned by the Nigerian government from returning home following Biafra’s surrender in January 1970 when Nigeria won the internal conflict of a nation.

 Queen Elizabeth II (who is still alive at age 95 in 2022) honored Tiger with the Order of the British Empire. He later returned it in protest of the United Kingdom’s government’s unconditional support of the Nigerian regime during the civil war. Tiger’s final fight was a 10 round decision to another middleweight, the late great Emile Griffith at Madison Square Garden on July 15, 1970. Following the loss, Tiger was unable to secure any big paydays and went to work as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Tiger was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1971. Shortly before his death, he was allowed to return to Nigeria for humanitarian to be with his wife and five children, where he died in Amaigbo, Nigeria, on December 15, 1972 at age 42.

 Following his brother Wladimir, Dr. Vitali “Dr. Ironfist” Klitschko, age 50, 45-2 with 41 knockouts, Kyiv, Ukraine, the Kyiv Mayor, has enlisted in the Ukrainian Army Reserve. With the Klitschko brothers now involved in a civil war with the possibility of getting injured or killed, the limited Ukrainian forces are now under attack form 30 thousand Russian troops. In the worst case scenario, the Russian Federation, which militarily annexed Crimea in 2014, could attempt to take back all of Ukraine for its natural resources.

 Mayor Klitschko remains concerned the Russian Federation may be trying to reconstruct the now defunct Soviet Union to expand its geographic resources and control. The major issue creating the controversy is whether Luhansk and Donetsk, which are occupied by Russian citizens, are in fact part of the Russian Federation due to their connection form the old Soviet Union, and whether the territory where they now reside should be annexed by the Russian Federation to protect its citizens, or if not evacuated as the Ukrainians could seek to take it back ethnically. “Thank you very much to everybody who supports our territorial integrity and independence of our country,” he said. “We need support from our friends in this critical situation for Ukraine. We don’t want to go back to the USSR, we see our future as a modern European democratic country, Ukraine,” he said. In December 2021, the United States approved a 200 million dollars support package for Ukraine. The United Kingdom followed with a 120 million dollars support package. United State President Joe Biden has sent 3000 troops to Germany, Romania, and Poland, which is far less than the troop support required for Ukraine to maintain economic, agricultural and energy independence from the Russian Federation, and retain stable governance.

 Observing the situation at a distance in this editorial from a neutral standpoint, it is hard to understand the complexity of the situation from the boxer’s viewpoint, as opposed to both Western and Eastern bloc propaganda. It is hard to understand the viewpoint of two former world heavyweight champions who could shortly get injured and or die on the front lines of geographic border conflict fought in the middle of the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus worldwide Pandemic. The Pandemic itself has already infected over 20 million individuals and claimed over a quarter of a million lives between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. There is not going to be any winners in a prolonged man to man armed conflict during this difficult time period. It seems an odd time for a European war between two prominent nations. The higher level issue is if Ukraine concedes the disputed areas to the Russian Federation, then the Russian Federation could attempt to take even more territory.  Ukraine has been plunged into economic poverty over the conflict in the self-declared independent country regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

 Since February 19, 2022, the areas on conflict have been shelled in Ukraine form the Russian side of the border. According to Michael Gubanov, a citizen of Ukraine who follows my columns on Real Combat Media, and has been explaining the situation from the Ukrainian viewpoint in our communiques, “Ukraine is a multinational state. Until 1939, the western part of today’s Ukraine was the territory of Poland, Romania, and Hungary. In 1939, these territories became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was part of the Soviet Union. In this regard, in the western part of Ukraine, the native language is Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian. In the central part of Ukraine, the native language is Ukrainian, Russian. In the eastern part of Ukraine, the native language is Russian. In the southern part of Ukraine, the native language is Russian and Moldovan (there is a border with Moldova). In the northern part of Ukraine, the native language is Russian. After the coup d’état in 2014, Poroshenko became president. He made a big mistake: he defined one state language in Ukraine. All other languages, including Russian, are not taught in schools. Communication in Russian is pursued by the authorities. This was Poroshenko’s big mistake, since 75 percent of the population speaks Russian in Ukraine. This led to a split in society in Ukraine.”

 The Western world misunderstands the precise nature of the internal multinational multilingual situation which has bubbled within Ukraine for years. With 75 percent of Ukraine Russian speaking, the question President Putin now begs is what is a Ukrainian? And what is Russian? The Ukrainians within the Ukraine may not be completely sure of who they are as a people, and President Putin may simply be defending what he believes are Russian nationals living in a Russian-speaking territory of the old Soviet Union which should never have been detached. The Ukrainian people fiercely wanted their independence, but since 2014, Ukraine as an independent economic entity has not functioned to its benefit as it did under Russian control.

 Vitali Klitschko, as a former world champion turned politician, is cause in an emotional quagmire. Vitali is depending the independence and freedom of his country as he sees it, which is Ukraine versus the Russian Federation. Vitali does not see the disputed border areas on his side of the border as Russian nationals under threat from Ukraine who are seeking Russian protection. Just who represents who, and who protects who, is center of the nexus of the conflict.

 Vitali is fighting for freedom and nationalism in the highest Ukrainian sense. The issue he is confronting is the people on the border on the Ukrainian side are Russian citizens. What remains unclear in the West is whether Ukraine seeks to retake those areas, or if the Russian Federation is protecting those Russians on the Ukrainian side of the border because they lack protection from the Ukrainian side of the border. Vitali is fighting in a ring now far larger than his championship days. It remains to be seen if the Klitschko brothers will hear the final bell, or will be carried out of their current ring. The Russian government claims Ukraine has been responsible for eight years of genocide against Russian citizens living in the disputed border areas on the Ukrainian side.

 Vitali is hoping for foreign intervention on a worldwide scale. While prominent nations and world leaders have condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they are not providing Ukraine with troops, manpower and weapons for defense, giving Russian the edge in a prolonged conflict. United States President Joe Biden said Washington and its allies would respond in a united and decisive way to an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces on Ukraine. “President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. The world will hold Russia accountable.”

 European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union stood with Ukraine, and Russia must withdraw its military. 27 EU leaders are going to hold an emergency summit meeting. United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was appalled by the horrific events in Ukraine, and President Putin has chosen a path of bloodshed and destruction by launching an unprovoked attack.

 International sanctions proved ineffective. In recent days, 50 Russian troops, six Russian warplanes and a Russian helicopter have been destroyed by Ukraine. No official word on the tally of injured and killed on the Ukrainian side. Russia first launched strikes on Ukraine’s military infrastructure and border guard units, according to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Russian military vehicles crossed the border at Kharkov in the north, Luhansk in the east, the Russian Federation annexed Crimea in the south and from the nation of Belarus. Ukraine’s army said Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport was among airfields that had been bombed, along with military headquarters and warehouses in the big cities of Kiev, Dnipro, Kharkov and Mariupol.

 In the months to come, Vitali Klitschko will fight a war on the front lines the rest of the world may not completely understand, and may give his life with his brother for the principles of the nation he believes in. In 36 months, World War II will be 80 years in the past, but evidently, that is not enough distance for nations like Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the world to get pulled into an unresolvable conflict with no easy diplomatic answers.