Before the war, Oleksii was the captain of FC Kramatorsk’s U-19 team. Football was his world — training, matches, and plans for the future.

Today, his reality looks very different.

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe that life was real,” he says. “Everything has changed so much.” Like so many others, Oleksii stepped away from the life he knew to defend his country.

And still, he holds on to a simple hope:

“To come home, step back onto the pitch, and live a normal life again — where the biggest worries are about football, not war.”