Born in 1963, Sergei Bubka has dominated for almost twenty years Pole vaultIn 1983, when he was not yet twenty years old, he broke into the world of athletics. At the time, he was considered a Soviet athlete, not just a national pride since he was from Ukraine, but a Union gymnast, at a time when the Olympics were not just sport. A great athlete due to injuries and the cold War, He also won less than he deserved: as in the case of the USSR's boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics. Elected by the athletes to the IOC, after his retirement he dedicated himself for years to organizing a major event related to pole vaulting Donetsk, where he ended his sporting career. The Berlin Wall has now fallen, and since 1989 Bubka has been above all heroic Ukrainian athlete, born in Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk). A detail that is by no means irrelevant in the context of the last ten years, but especially in the theater of War in Ukraine.
Bubka's affairs in Donbass
There is one constant in Bubka's life, and that is direct connection to Donbass: the place where he was born, where he completed his training as an athlete and where he runs his business today. The same affairs that now cast the shadow of a traitor on behalf of Moscow on the “flying tsar,” as he was called. It all started when the Ukrainian website Bihus denounced the Russian company Mont White– property of Segej and his brother – to do business in the occupied territories and cooperate with Russian “terrorists”. The company, which included the athlete's mother, is based in Russia and is accused of selling fuel to the enemy: The company had already been active in this sector and had secured well-known contracts in the past after participating in national tenders. After the occupation, it did not close, but moved its headquarters to Volnovakha (then uninhabited) and continued to participate in the same tenders.
What does the Mont Blanc company do?
At the beginning of the year the company appeared in the Register of Russian legal entities. The registration was carried out under the Occupied Territories Regulations, which provide for bureaucratic adjustment for all companies present on site. In the documents published by Bihus journalists it is said that despite the entry in the Russian register, the headquarters is again indicated in the Donetsk region. Since May 2023, there has been a place on the Russian procurement portal about Bubka and his brother's company: the two have received an order to supply fuel to the occupiers three contracts spread over time: 2000 liters of fuel for 100,000 rubles. According to the purchase agreements, Bubka's company would not deliver the fuel directly, but rather Vouchers can be redeemed at some gas stations with the Mont Blanc brand: there are six of them in the occupied territories of the Donabass.
The Fall of the Gods
Enough to make Bubka a traitor along with his brother. This is no coincidence Boo he opened oneInvestigation and a series of audits have been launched requesting materials from the Ukrainian investigative journalism website. Bubka's business is not technically a hidden or newly invented business: his company actually carries out the same activities as before the war. But in the context of a war, it makes sense to supply the enemy with gas vouchers Treason: especially when the person doing it is a sports hero tied to a national narrative that wants to keep Ukraine away from its ponderous Soviet past. In the early 2000s, Bubka was even a parliamentarian Party of the Regions, and with the same enthusiasm he tried to explain his reasons in a video in which he repeats that he has not been to Dobass since 2014, that he has not visited his family since then and that he does not do business with them Enemy. But beyond the refrain of Ukrainian gold, his aura of national hero is now clouded by doubt Collaborationism which brought down upon him the public ridicule of a nation in search of heroes old and new. To worsen his position, the golden life was in the Principality of Monacoafter leaving Ukraine with special permission in March 2022. As if that wasn't enough, his reserved comments on the war and lack of a forceful anti-Putin stance (as other Kiev athletes have done) further contributed to the downfall of the country's flying hero.