• Injured Ukrainian warriors encouraged me to “fight for the country”-Oleksandr.
• Usyk spent weeks assisting in the war effort after returning to Ukraine.
• Usyk was reluctant to return to training.

Oleksandr Usyk, the world champion heavyweight boxer, said the ongoing conflict in Ukraine prevented him from leaving, but injured Ukrainian warriors encouraged him to “fight for the country” in his rematch with Anthony Joshua.

Usyk spent weeks assisting in the war effort after returning to Ukraine, picking up weapons, and joining a territorial defence brigade in Kyiv after Russia invaded his country.

Usyk was reluctant to return to training when the Ukrainian sports minister said in March that he would be permitted to do so in the run-up to his fight with Joshua.

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“I really didn’t want to leave our country, I didn’t want to leave our city,” Usyk told reporters, per Reuters. “I went to the hospital where soldiers were wounded and getting rehabilitation from the war.

“They were asking me to go, to fight, to fight for the country, fight for your pride and if you’re going to go there, you’re even going to help more for our country.

“I know a lot of my close people, friends, close friends, are right now in the front line and fighting. What I’m doing right now, I’m just supporting them, and with this fight, I wanted to bring them some kind of joy in between what they do.”

“Every day, I was praying and I was asking God: ‘Please God, don’t let anybody to try to kill me,'” Usyk said. “‘Please don’t let anybody to shoot me. And please don’t let me to shoot anybody, any other person.'”

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“If they will want to take my life, or the lives of my close ones, I will have to do it,” he said. “But I don’t want that. I don’t want to shoot, I don’t want to kill anybody, but if they will be killing me, I will have no choice.”

“Maybe, it’ll sound sentimental,” he explained, “but my soul belongs to the Lord and my body and my honor belong to my country, to my family. So there is no fear, absolutely no fear. There’s just bafflement — how could this be in the 21st century?”