“I use anti-tank mines for weightlifting”: meet Ukraine’s Paralympians

The war-wounded join forces with soldiers on leave in the pursuit of sporting success

By Wendell Steavenson with Anastasiia Parafeniuk

One Sunday afternoon in mid-May, as the horse chestnuts flowered in candelabras along the Dnieper river, the Ukrainian Paralympian men’s sitting-volleyball team met for training in the city of Dnipro. They gathered in a cavernous sports hall built in the Soviet era, setting down their bags on benches, pulling off their prosthetic legs, pulling on their blue and yellow jerseys.

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