Shakhtar Donetsk brings message of resilience and investment to Champions League nights at Stamford Bridge

On Aug. 5 a logistics warehouse belonging to kit manufacturer Puma was destroyed by a Russian ballistic missile. That this in itself might seem an unremarkable event says everything about the trials endured by the Ukrainian people in the four and a half years since their country was invaded.

That it seems unremarkable to Serhii Palkin, chief executive of Shakhtar Donetsk, says even more about the tribulations that the Ukrainian champions have been through. In that warehouse was the retail supply of 2026-27 home kits. Shakhtar will spend the months ahead playing Champions League games at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge. For the clubs they face there, losing thousands of dollars of stock would be a crisis. For Palkin, it has long been normal.

When I ask him to reflect on how Shakhtar coped after the missile strike, he takes out his phone. A few taps and swipes and he has brought up a video of a three-story building that looks to be in the heart of Kyiv, flames consuming its limestone grandeur. Having your home kit blown up might seem an unimaginable difficulty, but for Shakhtar it is just another day.

"Two weeks ago we were in an office in Kyiv, I had a meeting with my directors," says Palkin. "One moment there was a huge bang. After that we realized that 100m from our office the Russian Shahed had struck. Can you imagine how mentally we can work after that?

"Two weeks before I was watching our girls playing in the Ukrainian championship. In one moment behind the stadium, the same Shahed strike. I'm trying to get in contact with our academy director to find out what's happening and no one is answering. Broadcast and connections have stopped. It's our everyday life."

So far this might feel like a familiar story of adversity for Shakhtar Donetsk, away from their home for over 12 years because of the military campaigns of Russian-backed paramilitaries in the Donbas and, later, the wider war in Ukraine. If so, it is one that the club, its parent organization SCM, energy firm DTEK and owner Rinat Akhmetov are determined to change.

'Building a bridge'

Hence when they take to the field at Stamford Bridge for their home game against AEK Athens, their shirts (stored separately from those caught up in the missile strike) will bear the slogan Invest In Ukraine. Though support for the war effort is still needed, one of the country's most high-profile institutions on a European scale is trying to shift the conversation to the business opportunities that can be found in a nation rapidly investing in a modern, secure energy infrastructure. It is in part why London makes such an appealing host for Shakhtar.

"Serhii has said London is the capital of world football," says Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, the largest private investor in the energy industry in Ukraine and part of Akhmetov's SCM Holdings. "In our case London still stands as the capital of the financial markets, in spite of all the political decisions. This is what we want to take as an advantage.

"What we feel is despite these negative images of our country, investment is continuing. We hear people who are ready to invest who just want to know how and where to start. We are building a bridge between the capital markets and Ukraine."

Significant investment is required. The Ukrainian government estimated in February that nearly $100 billion would be needed to restore its energy market, a price that is beyond the state itself. However, the extreme circumstances in which DTEK and other firms have found themselves have fostered innovation that has brought envious comments elsewhere in Europe. Ed Miliband, then Britain's energy secretary, said it was a "terrible indictment" of his predecessors that Ukraine had built more wind farms since the invasion than had been constructed in the United Kingdom in the same time. Now DTEK exports its people from Ukraine for projects in Romania and Poland, their expertise in technical, logistical and procurement matters now outstripping that of any other staff.

"Probably the key lesson we can teach is how to build in one year the project that usually takes five years," says Timchenko. "From the very initial stage of our projects to the connecting it to the grid, it takes 12 months. When I speak to my colleagues, they think that's impossible.

"Unfortunately this is the situation when you are put in extreme situations like Ukraine. Every timescale becomes shorter but that brings a lot of innovation, not only technology but also in the practicalities of developing things. Why has Ukraine had such rapid development in military technology? Because it had no choice."

Investment is already flowing into the country. Last month the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation approved a $97.5 million loan to DTEK to finance the battery storage project that is crucial in both keeping the lights on for Ukraine during harsh winters and building an energy strategy for the future. "We are building the new energy system at a national level," says Timchenko. "It will be replicated in other European countries. It is a matter of time until they realise both the danger coming from Russia and other countries. Energy infrastructure is critical. Everyone is realizing it, not just Ukraine."

'Not choosing comfort'

While their shirt offers hope for Ukraine's future, Shakhtar Donetsk and their players must adapt to the here and now. That means another stadium for their European games, Stamford Bridge their fourth since the invasion made it impossible for visiting teams to come to Kyiv. Playing European games in their homeland remains impossible, and getting to their nominal home ground is not much easier. Having played in the western city of Rivne on Friday night, Shakhtar were almost immediately on the road to London with the intention of arriving four days before they were due to face AEK Athens.

What was once a three-and-a-half-hour flight now requires a bus ride to the border, where the threat of Russian airstrikes could at a moment's notice see them stuck in transit, or worse. "Sometimes it can take 16 hours just to pass the border," says Palkin. "If you arrive at the border and the air raid sirens go off, you need to go back. You have to travel a kilometre back the way you came. Can you imagine? These sirens switch on [at any time] during the whole day. There are kilometers of people waiting to cross.

"It's impossible to predict what might happen at the border. When you have four buses, you cannot just get around the delays. Once you arrive you're stuck.

"Every day we face human challenges, travel challenges, logistical, emotional. For us, mentally and physically it's so difficult. We arrive at our home matches and feel less competitive against our opponent. They took two hours to get to London. We took two days. It's not an excuse. We'll show our best. We'll play good football."

That they did in their Champions League opener, holding PSV to less than an expected goal on the road and earning a point that could be vital in their pursuit of a top-24 finish and prolonged involvement in the competition. While the circumstances off the field are utterly out of the ordinary for Shakhtar, there was something curiously familiar about the shape of Arda Turan's XI on the pitch.