Ukraine: former player killed at the front

Ukrainian football is in mourning. Roman Maksymiuk, a former Ukraine international, has died at the front while serving in his country’s armed forces. His death, confirmed through DNA analysis, brings nearly twenty months of uncertainty to an end for his family, who had continued to hope that he would return.

A disappearance that lasted nearly twenty months

Aged 50 at the time of his disappearance, Maksymiuk joined the Ukrainian armed forces in autumn 2022, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He served as a rifleman with the 25th Sicheslav Airborne Brigade. On 30 January 2025, he contacted his wife for the last time from the front.

His unit was then attempting to break out of an encirclement in the Pokrovsk area, in Donetsk Oblast. Since that call, his family had received no news and the player was considered missing. It was ultimately a DNA analysis, conducted using a sample provided by his daughter Daria, that confirmed his death.

His wife pays a poignant tribute

Vera Maksymiuk announced the news on social media, expressing the pain of a family that had held on to hope for many months.

No miracle happened… A year of hope, waiting, prayers and faith. A year during which we lived between heaven and earth, clinging to the slightest hope and believing that Roman would return home.

During his career, Roman Maksymiuk represented several Ukrainian clubs, including Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Dynamo Kyiv. He also played for Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia. With Dynamo Kyiv, he won the Ukrainian championship and the national cup during the 1999–2000 season. He also earned five caps for the Ukraine national team between 1998 and 2002.

Aliou Toundé |

Editorfr

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