tennis player Veronika MiroshnichenkoErdoğan, who has Russian citizenship, explained why he does not see himself as Russian.

– I do not consider myself an ordinary Russian playing under a neutral flag. I was born in Moscow, but grew up and spent all my childhood in Zaporozhye. My mother, father, grandmother and grandfather are all from Zaporozhye. I grew up in a Ukrainian family, studied in a regular secondary school for almost 11 years until I went to the USA. So, of course, I consider Ukraine my homeland and I consider myself a Ukrainian, but with a Russian passport.

As for the ribbons I wear on my matches, I always carry them with me and even order a lot of them for myself because I have about ten different hats and I wear a blue and yellow ribbon in each one. This is a very big sign for me that I am Ukrainian, it is always with me in my heart. While playing, it reminds me of the hardships of the Ukrainian people and my family, and this gives me strength in the matches. Even though I play under a neutral flag and have a Russian passport, I have no relationship with the terrorist state and I always express this on my social networks.

I am currently actively working on the issue of changing citizenship. Consulates are working very hard right now and we are trying to do everything legally, but it is a complicated process. Now we collect the necessary documents; All certificates are from the school, the federation. We’re working every day to do this faster. I dream of the day when I will finally throw away this Russian passport.

I communicate with Andrei Medvedev – we were introduced by my coach from Los Angeles, Jeff Tarango (former world number 10 in doubles), who previously played at the highest level and has known Andrei very well for many years. My coach asked me to talk to FTU and tell my story because, as I said before, I never considered myself Russian; I always lived in Ukraine during my childhood and participated in many tournaments. After all, I played under the Ukrainian flag in ITF Juniors competitions.

Already when I registered at the professional level, my passport was required and I never had Ukrainian citizenship. Since I was born in Moscow, the only document I always had was a Russian passport, and so although I didn’t want to change the flag, I had no choice.

Andrey Medvedev contacted me, he knows my situation, he helped me get a certificate from the federation that I really played in Ukrainian tournaments and the results are officially in the archives of the Federal Technical University. This will help me a lot when I have the opportunity to go to the consulate, every document is important now,” said Veronica.

Note that Miroshnichenko lost to Lyudmila Kichenok in a doubles match at a tournament in Guadalajara.

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Posted by Veronika Miroshnichenko 🇺🇦 (@ver0nika_nika_)