A Russian ice hockey star who signed a multi-million dollar career with a US team is reportedly being forced by Putin’s army to fight in Ukraine instead.
Ivan Fedotov, 25, was rushed to an army enrollment office yesterday after being detained by a group of police officers in uniform and in plain clothes in St Petersburg.
The accusation of ‘draft evasion’ is seen as revenge for his signing to play for the NHL team the Philadelphia Flyers.
The top goalkeeper and Olympic silver medalist signed a $ 1.1 million (£ 900,000) deal last month.
Fedotov was previously at CSKA, a club in the capital with close ties to the Russian military. His name translates to Central Sports Club of the Army.
News outlet Fontanka has reported that he could now be sent to the Russian military rather than the US – but he could also be jailed for alleged evasion.
Russian national goalkeeper Fedotov has signed a contract with the NHL team, the Philadelphia Flyers
Olympic silver medalist may face possible deployment in Ukraine after ‘draft evasion’
“He has just been detained” because he evaded the army “, Russian journalist Dmitry Navosha reported.
Fedotov is pictured winning the KHL Goalkeeper of the Year award last season
Fedotov – who is 6 feet 7 and one of the best players in the Russian and Chinese KHL leagues – ‘did not realize that [the USSR] is back ‘, I added.
The player announced his intention to play in the NHL.
The operation appears to be a deliberate attempt to question him.
Video shows the moment he was detained at the ice rink in St Petersburg on Friday.
He was still at the enrollment office late at night before being taken to hospital in an ambulance.
A woman tried to get inside the ambulance but was pushed back. It is thought it was his mother.
Fedotov’s current whereabouts are unknown.
The man in charge of Russian ice hockey is Roman Rotenberg, son of oligarch and Putin’s partner Boris.
Both men are being sanctioned by the US over their ties to Putin, as well as Roman’s uncle, Arkady Rotenberg.
Worrying footage shows Fedotov confronting police outside a track in St Petersburg yesterday
Fedotov was taken in a police car. His current whereabouts are now unknown
A source told Fontanka that the military prosecutor’s office believes “there are sufficient grounds to consider Fedotov an army evader”.
Despite being born in Finland and raised in Russia, the fact that he played for CSKA meant he was considered a military man, one report said.
Technically, all Russian men can be called up to the age of 28, although few boys of the elite serve in the army, and fewer have been sent to fight in Ukraine.
Fedotov is the goalkeeper of the Russian national team.
The move was interpreted as an attempt to punish Fedotov for signing an NHL contract
A man retrieved his belongings at his home in Siversk, near Donetsk, which was shot with a rocket
If he refuses to serve, he could face jail time.
A source told Fontanka: “Nothing prevents even tomorrow from sending hockey player Fedotov to the army.”
As a conscript, he should theoretically not be sent to fight in what Putin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Yet there are reports of conscripts as young as 18 being sent to fight.
Men up to 49 years old are now listed as Russian forces become exhausted.
A few Bakhmut, Donetsk locals take pictures of a crater left by a Russian missile attack on July 1
Inspectors review damage yesterday in Segiyvka near Odessa, where 21 people died
A man on a bicycle watches as smoke rises from an explosion in Siversk, Ukraine, yesterday
At least 21 people, including two children, were killed and dozens more injured in the latest Russian missile attack on a civilian building in Ukraine.
A nine-story apartment building in Odessa was targeted by a rocket overnight.
It is only the latest Russian air strike to hit a civilian target in Ukraine, after the Kremenchuk shopping center was hit on Monday – killing at least 20 – and an apartment block in Mykolaiv was hit on Wednesday – killing at least eight .
Ukraine says Russia is deliberately targeting civilians as part of a “terror” campaign to divert attention from its failed invasion, a charge that Putin denies.
A Ukrainian army photo shows damaged buildings hit by Russian bombs in the east
The Odesa attack – believed to have been carried out by a Russian Tu-22 bomber – took place just hours after Putin’s forces withdrew from Snake Island, about 90 miles from the sea of the main port city.
Russian forces have been forced to withdraw from the 100-acre spit fire after firing on Ukrainian artillery and anti-ship missile batteries.
Moscow tried to play down the withdrawal as a ‘gesture of benevolence’, the same phrase it used when it was forced to withdraw from Kiev and Chernihiv earlier in the war.