Ukraine’s fanatical, sometimes violent “ultras” soccer fans are rebranding.
They used to be just groups of aggressive young men, ready to fight with the ultra-supporters of other soccer clubs, or the police, at matches.
But the EuroMaidan Revolution and Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine have changed the Ukrainian ultras movement. Hundreds of soccer fans joined the Ukrainian army and former volunteer battalions such as Azov, Aidar and Donbas to fight Russia’s aggression.
“The revolution and war pushed everything into the background for us. All the soccer fans signed a sort of peace treaty during the EuroMaidan Revolution in order to unite for the defense of our country,” said Artem Khudolieiev, a member of White Boys Club, one of the largest ultras groups, which supports Dynamo Kyiv.
There are 12 Premier League soccer teams in Ukraine. The biggest are Dynamo Kyiv, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Zorya Luhansk, Karpaty Lviv, Metalist Kharkiv, Metalurg Zaporyzhya, and Chornomorets Odesa.
Every team has its own community of ultras and hooligans. Prior to the war, they used to have a complicated relationship, with certain clubs viewed as enemies and others as friends. The fans of Dynamo, Dnipro and Karpaty were friendly with each other, but counted Shakhtar and Metalist as enemies.
Each match between rival teams, usually attended by more than 2,000 ultras from each side and up to 80,000 regular supporters, involved offensive chants and banners.
But the most intense confrontations used to happen outside stadiums. Scheduled fights that involved hundreds of hooligans took place.
Soccer as a lifestyle
Yuriy Sabada has been supporting Shakhtar Donetsk for more than 12 years. He is sure that for faithful fans, their club means everything.
“These people live in a sort of soccer world,” he says. “Their whole lives are connected to soccer, and are planned according to the schedule of their teams’ games. They’re always on the road.”
Oleksandr Trikisha, a longtime Dynamo fan, football expert and sports journalist, told the Kyiv Post that confrontation between the fans of different teams had always been an intrinsic part of the ultras’ culture.
Trikisha said that fights could be divided into three types: arranged, spontaneous attacks and fights on neutral ground. The ultras use slang terms to refer to each type of fight.
“When two antagonistic ultras or hooligan groups arrange a fight in the city of a third team, it’s called a ‘levak,’” explained Trikisha.
Defending a team banner is another important part of the culture. In 2011, Dynamo fans even traveled to Rome just to steal one of the Shakhtar fans’ banners when the Donetsk team played against the Italian team Roma, Trikisha said.
Khudolieiev said that there was a big difference between the ultras’ and the regular hooligans’ style. Hooligans are always aggressive and looking for violence, while ultras emphasize discipline and creating an impressive appearance. It is forbidden to drink alcohol, use drugs and even sit in the ultras’ section of a stadium during the 90 minutes of a soccer match, Khudolieiev said.
“We begin to prepare for the game early, making 10-meter-long banners, and writing and learning songs and chants. Some mass performances can also take a long time to rehearse,” said Khudolieiev.
Before the start of the soccer season, every member of the ultras has to buy a season ticket, which costs about Hr 300.
Khudolieiev said that ultras can be men and women of all ages. Some of them have been supporting their team since the last years of the Soviet Union, the late 1980s.
That’s when the ultras movement first came to Ukraine, when Dynamo supporters started to travel across the Soviet Union along with their favorite team, wearing white-blue scarves and team uniforms.
“But there was no violence among the fans until the 2000s, when the fashion for aggressive English-style support (hooliganism) came to us,” said Sabada.
From stadium to war
The ultras have always been a pro-Ukrainian movement. They were also one of the most closed of Ukraine’s fan communities because of their conflicts with Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.
They even launched political protests during games. For example, during a game in 2013 Dynamo ultras put out a banner against legislation that supported the Russian language in Ukraine.
During the EuroMaidan Revolution, the well-trained ultras helped defend activists from pro-Russian titushki, the thugs hired by the government of ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych and they were on the front line during violent clashes with riot police.
Dynamo fans’ arch-rivals, Shakhtar Donetsk ultras, were forced to leave the Donbas capital along with their soccer club, which is owned by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. Shakhtar moved to Lviv in 2014, and then to Kyiv in 2015.
Sabada was one of the Shakhtar ultras who left the city. He said that fans had become enemies of the local Russian-backed separatists because.
“Someone leaked the Interior Ministry’s register of all ultras, with their phone numbers and addresses. It was very dangerous to stay in Donetsk,” said Sabada.
In 2014, after Russian-backed armed gangs started seizing government buildings in Donetsk city and oblast, some of the ultras formed squads and tried to fight back. But they had no weapons were eventually forced to leave their native city.
Sabada said that ultras in the government-controlled cities were providing all sorts of help to their former rivals who became refugees.
“When the repression started, many ultras invited their fellow supporters to their own cities and towns. They also helped them to find accommodation and a job,” said Sabada.
But the ultras’ peace deal with rival groups will last only as long as Russia’s war in Ukraine, Khudolieiev said. “We’ve stopped our internal clashes. But when the war ends, the confrontation will resume,” he said. n
