Shakhtar footballer Junior Moraes donates $56,000 to Ukraine after leaving the country

Archive – Shakhtar Donetsk player Junior Moraes in a match against Basel – Bernd Thissen/dpa – Archive

Live | Crisis in Ukraine

MADRID, March 1. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder Junior Moraes has donated $56,000 – just over 50,000 euros – to the Ukrainian government to help it resist the Russian invasion, his club confirmed, just hours after the Brazilian-Ukrainian footballer left the country after the beginning of the Russian offensive.

This same Monday, Moraes, 34, who has played for Shakhtar since 2018, left Ukraine along with other Brazilian teammates due to the war. The soccer player born in Santos became a Ukrainian national and played 11 games for the country’s national team.

Precisely for this reason, Moraes was affected by a presidential decree that establishes that every Ukrainian citizen between the ages of 18 and 60 is prohibited from leaving the country and must take up arms to defend it from the Russian attack.

However, the Brazilian managed to cross the border and reach Poland after traveling hundreds of kilometers from his home in Donetsk, where Russian-backed separatists took control of the city.