Ukrainian football player Serhiy Petrov was born in Crimea, lived half his life in Volyn, and died near Pokrovsk, fighting for the Russian Federation. We reconstructed the events that preceded this

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Serhiy Petrov was born in Crimea, in Yevpatoria. He played football in local teams from an early age. In 2011, the team of the sports club “VIK-Volyn” from Volodymyr came to the city for training. At such training camps, teams from other cities usually hold friendly matches with local teams.

During one of them, the coach of “VIK-Volyn” noticed Serhiy’s potential and offered him a place in the club. So at the age of 14, Serhiy himself, without his parents, went to the other end of the country, where he lived and trained in a football boarding school.

In the 11th grade, in 2014, Petrov was invited to the club “Volyn” in Lutsk, where his coach was Vitaliy Kvartsyanyi. Vitaliy has repeatedly said that he saw potential in Serhiy that not all Ukrainian coaches could appreciate.

Vitaliy Kvartsyanyi is the former head coach and president of "Volyn" in Lutsk.

Віталій Кварцяний / Instagram

Serhiy Petrov in 2015.

Sergey Petrov / Instagram

When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Serhiy’s family — his parents, brother, grandparents — decided to stay on the peninsula. Serhiy visited them from time to time. Since he lived in Ukraine, he received a Ukrainian passport, and given his Crimean residence permit, a Russian one, without which it was impossible to come to Crimea.

In 2014, Serhiy met his future wife, Tatyana, from Ryazan. A year after they started dating, he invited her to go to Crimea with him to introduce him to his family. According to Tatyana, Serhiy’s family never discussed who was for whom— Ukraine or Russia.

In 2018, Serhiy and Tatyana got married in Rivne. A year later, the couple had a son David, and in 2021, a daughter Daniela.

“He always tried to buy the best for his children. He really loved it when David came to his training: after classes, they played football, just ran around the field, and went to the playground,” says Tetyana. The family was close-knit.

From 2014 to 2021, Serhiy played for six Ukrainian football clubs. He achieved the greatest results as part of “Agrobusiness”. According to the clubʼs head coach Oleksandr Chyzhevsky, inviting Serhiy was to some extent taking a risk: despite his talent, the football player had a reputation as an athlete who violated the regime.

According to the coach, he also knew about Serhiyʼs problems with alcohol and immediately clearly outlined the line. If he drank, the club would not keep him. And the football player held on.

Serhiy left “Agrobusiness” on his own in the summer of 2021. As Oleksandr Chyzhevsky says, the football player decided to “look for a better fate”. According to his ex-wife, after “Agrobusiness”, Serhiy was considered by several football clubs, negotiations were underway. Former Volyn head coach Vitaliy Kvartsyanyi said in 2025 that he had offered Serhiy to Dynamo and Shakhtar, but an agreement could not be reached.

“He lost himself with un-football behavior, but he was a very strong player,” Vitaliy emphasized.

On the eve of a full-scale war, Serhiy received an offer from a Belarusian football club.

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The Petrov family first learned about the full-scale war from Sergei. A few days before February 24, he traveled to Belarus to join a Belarusian football club.

However, he was unable to cross the border due to the large amount of military equipment that was already ready to attack. Upon returning home, Sergei told his family to prepare, because the war was about to begin.

At that time, the family lived in Rivne, near the airport. When the airport itself was hit by a rocket on February 25, the family decided that Tetyana and her children should leave for Germany, where her mother lived. And so they did. A month later, Serhiy wrote to Tatyana that he had been invited to join the football team and that he should go — he did not specify where or which team.

Later it turned out that he had actually left for Crimea. Since then, all of his football teammates have lost contact with Serhiy.

“He said that he had come home, that he was doing well there, and that he had decided to live for himself. He said that he had not yet reached his full potential and asked to be given freedom. It was very difficult to accept, because we have two children and a very young daughter,” recalls Tatyana.

His ex-wife does not know which way Serhiy left. The only thing he told her about the trip was that he left without being sure whether he would survive.

“In Crimea, he initially worked on getting back into shape and also on household chores, because his dad had died. My mother is seriously ill and needed help,” says Tatyana.

Tatyana adds that at the time she did not perceive Serhiy’s departure as a sign that he had defected to the Russian side. She believed that he was simply looking for an opportunity to continue his football career.

In September 2022, Serhiy began playing for Crimean football clubs, but was on the bench in most matches. In 2023, he received a contract offer from the Uzbek club “Mashʼal Mubarek” and agreed.

"He was delighted with the team, according to him, he was doing well there," says Tatyana. In early 2024, Serhiy joined another Uzbek club, Kokand-1912.

Tatyana and Serhiy were officially divorced in 2023. All these years, Tatyana maintained contact with him, offered him to come to see the children, but he refused every time.

In early 2025, Serhiy left Uzbekistan and returned to Crimea.

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It is not known exactly why Serhiy left his career in Uzbekistan. His ex-wife Tatyana refused to disclose all the details, but clarified: Serhiy played in the Uzbek club as a Ukrainian, and in March 2025 his Ukrainian passport expired.

Because of this, the club could not extend the contract, because Serhiy needed to renew his document for this, and he could not return to Ukraine. The club did not sign contracts with players with Russian passports.

“He called me, asked if it was possible to apply for a Ukrainian passport abroad. But then he started having problems with his documents, and he couldn’t go anywhere at all,” says Tetyana.

There was no official farewell from Serhiy to the club, just as there was no official farewell from the club to him. After returning to Crimea, Serhiy played for the amateur team “Tavria-Energo” for several months. He was injured and, without surgery, most likely, would not have been able to continue his football career.

In the early summer of 2025, Sergei voluntarily joined the assault unit of the Russian army. Tatyana learned about this from acquaintances who sent her a photo of her ex-husband in military uniform. Then she wrote to him herself.

“I directly asked how he could make such a decision, because he has children on this side. Serhiy replied that on the other side he has a mother, grandmother, and brother. He also wrote the phrase: ʼIt is what it is’,” says Tatyana.

Tatyana adds that Serhiy’s family dissuaded him from the army, but it was his conscious decision.

Since then, they have only spoken once: Tatyana asked if he was okay, and Serhiy replied that he was. He has repeatedly posted photos in military uniform on his social media.

At the end of January 2025, Serhiy died near Pokrovsk. His death was officially announced in Ukraine on February 15.

“I was informed about his death by his godfathers from Crimea. Later, I contacted his family myself. I feel sorry for him as a person and as the father of my children. But in my opinion, this is a betrayal,” says Tatyana.

On February 17th, Serhiy was buried in Yevpatoria.

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Serhiyʼs football teammates, with whom he crossed paths at different times at different clubs, say they never noticed any pro-Russian views in him. According to them, Serhiy always considered Crimea to be Ukrainian. Tatyana adds that political topics were never raised in their family.

After the annexation of Crimea, Serhiy continued to communicate with friends who remained on the peninsula. One of them is his childhood friend Oleksiy Smirnov. He is slightly older than Serhiy and served in the Ukrainian army until 2014. After the occupation, Oleksiy remained in Crimea and joined the Russian army. Serhiy baptized his child and maintained a relationship with him until the end.

Oleksiy is still serving in the Russian army, but according to Tatyana, he does not take direct part in the fighting against Ukraine. In 2022, he supported Russiaʼs actions on VKontakte, and after Serhiyʼs death, he published a memorial post, calling him a "hero of Russia".

At the same time, many football players with whom Serhiy began his career in Ukraine joined the Ukrainian army after 2022. Among them is Roman Hodovany, with whom he played together for Volyn.

In 2023, Roman died in Zaporizhzhia. Also, Dmytro Zaderetsky is another Volyn pupil who lived in the same room with Petrov and at the beginning of a full-scale war stood up for his native Chernihiv.

Serhiy’s ex-wife now lives in Germany with her children. Their son Davyd started first grade last fall. Tetyana’s cousin, who fought on the side of Ukraine, was killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Tatyana now has new relationships. She continues to stay in touch with Serhiy’s family and says she is ready to help them if they ask.

“I live with the hope that one day Crimea will become Ukraine again, and the children will be able to visit the place where their father is buried,” Tatyana sums up.