October 21 – Ukraine’s domestic champions have once again become an unwitting victim of the military conflict in the country after Shakhtar Donetsk’s state-of-the-art Donbass Arena suffered further damage from shelling despite a ceasefire agreed between the government and Russian-backed separatists.
Photographs of the $400 million stadium – which only opened five years ago and hosted five matches at Euro 2012- showed part of its glass facade badly damaged.
The ground is right in the heart of eastern Ukraine’s Russian separatist stronghold and Vadyn Gunko, the Arena’s interim executive manager, told the club’s website: “As a result of a powerful explosion, the blast wave caused serious damage to the western and eastern parts of the arena.”
“We are warning the residents of Donetsk not to approach the stadium under any circumstances as it might be unsafe.”
Shakhtar, league champions for the past five seasons, have been forced to temporarily move their headquarters to Kiev, with “home” Champions League games being played 600 miles away in the western city of Lviv.
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