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Sofia Lyskun was born in Luhansk. Her parents introduced her to sports when she was five years old. Her father worked in a car repair shop. Among his regular clients was diving coach Tamara Tokmachova. It was she who advised Sofia to take up sports — her parents took their daughter to the pool. Sofia made her first jump from a ten-meter platform at the age of eight, and at the same age she won her first medal.
At competitions, she was often one of the youngest athletes. In Luhansk, she was trained by three mentors: Andriy Shyrideha (first coach), Olha Feoktystova (until 2012), and Tamara Tokmachova.
In 2014, when Sofia was twelve, she had to leave Luhansk because of the war. After the city was occupied, the Ukrainian Diving Federation evacuated the entire regional team, which included Sofia, to Kyiv.
Her family did not move to the capital: her grandmother remained in occupied Luhansk, and her parents later left for Russia. From the age of thirteen, Sofia lived under the care of coaches in a sports dormitory.
The team says that she was very independent and did not consider her parents to be an authority. Sofia herself has repeatedly emphasized in interviews that “the coaches are her second parents”.
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After moving to Kyiv, there was almost no time for adaptation — all her free time was spent on training. Sofiaʼs coach was Tamara Tokmachova — the same one who once brought her into sports, and since 2016, Luhansk resident Ilya Tselyutin became her mentor.
They got along well. Before competitions, they often made bets — on time off, money or new swimsuits. Especially on swimsuits, because Sofia loved them very much. At the same time, Ilya says that sometimes the girl could be a little afraid of him as a coach.
In the photo, Sofia Lyskun with Tamara Tokmachova, who introduced her to sports; Sofia Lyskun with coach Ilya Tselyutin.
Інстаграм Софії Лискун
According to the team, the closest person to Sofia was always her grandmother. She often came to her granddaughter in Kyiv, and from there they traveled together to Luhansk. This continued until 2019, when the Ministry of Youth and Sports issued recommendations not to travel to the occupied territories.
Later, according to Sofiaʼs colleagues, they still met in the territory of Luhansk region, which remained under the control of Ukraine until 2022.
In Kyiv, Sofia studied remotely at the Luhansk Regional Boarding Lyceum of Physical Culture and Sports, and after graduation she entered the Luhansk Shevchenko National University.
In 2019, Sofiaʼs mother moved to Kyiv, and since then they have lived together. The girl said almost nothing about her father, no one from the team has ever seen him.
After winning gold at the 2019 European Championships, Sofia admitted that she had thoughts of quitting the sport due to fatigue and health problems. In the summer of 2021, after the Tokyo Olympics, where Sofia did not win any medals, she announced that she was ending her career after all. After that, Sofia coached children for a while, but less than a year later she returned to the sport, saying that “life is boring” without it.
According to colleagues, there have never been any conflict situations with Sofia, but everyone says one thing — she is emotional.
“I met Sofia in 2017. We started jumping together in 2020, when I got to the national team. That’s when they were looking for a new partner for Sofia, and I met all the requirements. Until 2023, we were close friends, but Sofia is very emotional — sometimes even small things turned into arguments or her attitude towards me was unacceptable,” says athlete Ksenia Bailo.
Neither colleagues nor coaches have ever noticed Sofiaʼs pro-Russian views. In all interviews after 2014, she said that she left Luhansk because of the war that Russia started.
The only thing is that she continued to maintain contact with her former coach from Luhansk Olha Feokttstova. She moved to Russia back in 2012 and completely switched to Russian sports: since 2016 she has been working as a coach for the Russian diving team, and in 2025 she officially headed it. Feokttstova does not speak publicly about the war.
“Sofia communicated with Feoktystova in 2018. They personally saw each other in the pool during the competition. We could not forbid it, although everyone in the team understood who this person was and whom she supported. Feoktystova already had intentions for Sofia then,” says coach Ilya Tselyutin.
But Sofia Lyskun continued to win victories for Ukraine, and in an interview she said that she dreams of "a peaceful sky".
Sofia Lyskun with her mother; Sofiaʼs former coach Olha Feoktystova (right); Sofia with her colleague Ksenia Bailo.
ukrdiving / Instagram; from Russian channels
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When the full-scale invasion began, Sofia was in no hurry to leave the country — she was waiting for her coach. Ilya Tselyutin was waiting for his family to evacuate from Rubizhne at the time, and only when his family reached Kyiv were he and Sofia able to leave together.
At the end of April, both of them left for Germany, where most of the national team was already there. There, the team continued to prepare for the 2022 European Championship. And after the competition ended, in July, the athletes returned to Kyiv.
Later, the team repeatedly traveled to Poland to train due to the constant shelling of Kyiv and power outages. After the competition, the team returned to Kyiv.
Sofia condemned Russiaʼs full-scale attack on Ukraine. She said that Russian athletes have no place in international competitions, and together with her colleagues signed a letter to the president of the International Swimming Federation demanding that they be banned. Sofia has repeatedly stressed that she considers Russian athletes to be insincere and that they have always been "disliked" in competitions.
At the same time, the athlete admitted that her grandmother succumbed to Russian propaganda:
“Russian television has been broadcasting in the occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions for eight years. And on February 24, the grandmothers immediately started telling in the news that they had come to liberate Kyiv. And the grandmother started telling me and my mother that we were supposedly being liberated,”
According to Sofia, later she and her grandmother simply stopped discussing these topics.
Sofiaʼs comment on Oleksiy Durnevʼs video, in which he mocks Russians. Her phrase "demo task" may mean that Sofia was hinting that Durnev allegedly made this video at the request of the Ukrainian authorities, May 6, 2022.
According to her team members, in February 2022, Sofia felt a strong sense of deja vu — everything reminded her of the events of 2014 in Luhansk. She independently gathered younger athletes and instructed them where to hide during shelling.
Colleagues say that she constantly supported the Ukrainian army and made reposts with army training. Sofia has repeatedly repeated in interviews that for her the war has been going on for more than ten years.
“I went through a lot in Luhansk and, when I went to Kyiv, I hoped that this would never happen again. But everything is repeating itself. Not like it was in Luhansk then, but I still want it to end quickly and live without worries and missiles,” she said.
2022 was the most successful year in Sofiaʼs career — she won four silver medals, one of which was her first at the World Championships. In 2023, she missed the competition due to an injury.
According to colleagues, after returning her behavior changed somewhat, and her relationships with many became purely workplace ones.
Oleksiy Sereda and Sofia Lyskun during the European Aquatics Championships in Rome, August 2022; Athletes in the final at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, July 1, 2022.
From 2023, Russian athletes were allowed to compete in international competitions as “neutrals”, and from 2024, to participate in team disciplines in aquatic sports. Olha Feoktistova came to these competitions, and, as Ilya Tselyutin suggests, from then on they could have crossed paths with Sofia in the pool.
In the summer of 2025, Sofia won gold and silver at the European Diving Championships. After the competition, her behavior became suspicious. In August, she took a vacation, and then continued it every month at her own expense, explaining it by family circumstances.
“I asked her directly whether we were continuing to work or not. We have a synchronized pair — Liskun and Bailo. They perform together. I had to understand whether to think about a replacement. But she was constantly in touch, assuring that she would come and prepare for the competitions this season. And on November 26, she was supposed to leave for Kyiv,” says Ilya Tselyutin.
Later, Sofia reported that it was not possible to leave.
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No one knows exactly where Sofia was during her vacation. She told her coach and team that her grandmother was sick and she had to go to her. According to her friend, she and Sofia havenʼt been in touch for the past few months.
On November 3, videos featuring Lyskun appeared in Russian media. They made it clear that the athlete had changed her Ukrainian citizenship to Russian. She explained her decision by the "incompetence of Ukrainian coaches" and stated that she was allegedly forbidden to communicate with her former coach Olha Feoktystova. Although, according to her, they "always saw each other at competitions".
Coach Ilya Tselyutin, who is also from Luhansk, immediately recognized the locations in the videos — they were all filmed in Luhansk. And on December 7, Lyskun posted a photo from Moscow on Instagram.
Screenshot from a video in which Sofia Lyskun reads the oath of allegiance to Russia; Sofia Lyskun in Moscow, December 7, 2025.
Скриншот з російських новин; Інстаграм Софії Лискун
Sofiaʼs colleagues condemned her accusations against Ukrainian sports.
"Her words about the alleged poor treatment of athletes in Ukraine are completely unfounded. We were given all the conditions for training: salaries, scholarships, awards, training camps, competitions, a wonderful swimming pool. Under the leadership of Ilya Yevhenovych, we became European champions, climbed world podiums, and made it to the Olympic Games. To say that the coach is incompetent and that she ʼdid not growʼ under his leadership is cruel criticism and disrespect," says athlete Ksenia Bailo.
Ilya Tselyutin clarifies that Lyskun belonged to the elite group of Ukrainian athletes and received the maximum salary. He does not understand what exactly the athlete is complaining about.
“Discipline is the most important thing in sports. You need to eat right, maintain a stable weight, go to bed on time, not drink alcohol and not smoke. This is difficult even for an adult, you need a strong character. But in the last year I can definitely say that Sofia has had no problems with self-control — she has behaved well and is disciplined,” adds Ilya Tselyutin.
The Ukrainian Diving Federation called Lyskunʼs decision "categorically unacceptable". Sofia was expelled from the national team and stripped of all awards and titles won while competing for Ukraine. The federation also said it would appeal to international sports bodies to impose a one-year sports quarantine on Lyskun — effectively restricting her from participating in competitions.
The athlete was not warmly welcomed in Russia either. Russian sports journalist Elena Vaitsekhovskaya notes that Lyskunʼs transfer is a loss for Ukraine, but not a gain for Russia. According to her, with her current results, Lyskun is unlikely to even qualify for the Russian national team reserve, let alone participate in synchronized events.
It is unknown where Sofiaʼs family is now. Ilya Tselyutin tried to contact her mother, but she did not answer. At the same time, Sofia is still following her colleagues and coach on Instagram. She did not delete the photos with the coach and from competitions under the Ukrainian flag, and the inscription "married" appeared on her profile.
Sofia Lyskun during a warm-up before the mixed team vault, Berlin, March 22, 2024.