by 
Yevhen Pronin, Acting President of the Athletics Federation of Ukraine, presses play on a video on his phone. “There are two Russian soldiers here,” he says matter-of-factly. “So I drop the bomb here, like a basketball, as you see. The machine moves here and crushes them, so they die.”
Pronin, 31, is the youngest president of the Athletics Federation in the world. He is also a successful lawyer and, in recent months, a soldier on the front lines of the Ukrainian army fighting the Russian invasion.
This week he travels to Munich to watch the nation’s athletes – many of whom have fled their homes to escape the war – compete in the European Championships. He will then return to fight.
“When the war started on February 24, I chose something that many boys and men in Ukraine chose,” he said. “I signed a contract and became a soldier in the Ukrainian army. I had no experience, but I was ready mentally and emotionally.”
The girlfriend and his sister lived in the parking lot under their building in Kyiv for a month before evacuating to Dresden and then Vienna. Pronin stayed behind, left his home and committed himself to fight.
After flying drones in his spare time, he signed up to conduct reconnaissance missions and use military drones to drop bombs on enemy fighters.
When asked how he felt about killing Russian soldiers, he replied: “I feel good because I’m doing this for my country. If we don’t kill them, they can kill our children, they can kill us. Of course, I’m not a murderer in real life.
“We’ve had a lot of problems with Russia over perhaps 200 to 300 years. For my generation, it’s a chance. My parents are afraid to do anything because they grew up part of the Soviet Union. But my generation is different. With the international sanctions, the work with the international community, it is the best time to do it. The time for this war is the best time for our generation.”
Along with his fellow lawyer friends, Pronin forms part of a drone unit called the Tactical Busters, which uploads videos of their kills to Instagram. “It’s propaganda,” he said. “Most Ukrainian soldiers do. It is a new kind of war. When we need help from volunteers or international organizers, we send them videos.”
It is the same reason why he is allowed to leave the front line and speak to the media while participating in the EC and last month’s World Cup. “They know it sends a powerful message when I’m here and our athletes are here,” he said.
A slimmed-down Ukrainian contingent won two high jump medals at these world championships, where Pronin says he was disappointed that Ukrainian legend and world athletics vice-president Sergey Bubka chose not to meet the athletes. “I don’t understand Sergey,” said Pronin. “I respect him as a great sportsman, but I don’t respect him as an official now.”
Ukraine should also win a handful of medals this week, while Russia and Belarus have been banned from international athletics since March. Pronin insists that the sanction should remain for some time yet.
“I think that Russians can return to international sports, but not in this generation,” he said. “First of all, we must spend time after this war to be divorced from Russia. It is like the same situation with Hitler’s Germany. Maybe a generation, maybe 30 years, will be the right time to compete without Russians.”
So important is Pronin’s role in the war that he knows there is a bounty on his head. Every day, Ukrainian security services intercept Russian phone calls discussing the “f—ing drone team.”
Pronin said: “They tell their soldiers that if they can capture one of our group alive, they give them either some money or some days off.”
Nevertheless, he will come out into the open this week in Munich to fulfill duties in the second role of his double life. Off goes the military uniform and suit befitting his presidential status. It seems like an astonishing existence, alternating between murderous and dignified. “Why?” he answered. “It’s normal.”
