Betrayed Ukraine for the national team of occupied Crimea: how former Dynamo forward facilitated Russian propaganda

Former Dynamo Kyiv and Tavria Simferopol striker Oleksii Antiukhin, who betrayed Ukraine and received a Russian passport after the occupation of Crimea, resumed his career at the age of 51. The footballer, who played one match for our national team, was even listed as one of the coaches of the national team of the peninsula seized by Russia, but his career did not work out there.

Antiukhin was born in Zaporizhzhia and is a graduate of the local Metalurh, from where he moved to Tavria Simferopol in the summer of 1993. There, together with Oleksandr Haidash, he created one of the most formidable striking tandems in the Ukrainian championship of the first half of the 90s. And in the 1994/1995 season, Oleksii became the Crimean team's top scorer with 18 goals.

In just three seasons in a Tavria team, the striker scored 37 goals in the Premier League and attracted the attention of Dynamo Kyiv coaches. They invited him to Kyiv. But things didn't work out for him in the capital as he failed to win the competition for a starting spot from Viktor Leonenko, Serhii Rebrov, and the new star Andrii Shevchenko.

In six matches, he failed to hit the net even once and was forced to strengthen Dynamo-2, becoming the star of the double. In the 1996/1997 season, he even won the scoring race in the First League with 22 goals in 25 matches. However, soon Antiukhin was still forced to look for a new job.

"Before Dynamo, by the way, Dnipro, which was managed by a German specialist, was interested in me, but I chose Kyiv. I was invited to Dynamo by the great Valerii Lobanovskyi himself, who wanted to use me like he used to use Vadym Yevtushenko. Andrii Shevchenko and Serhii Rebrov were already making a name for themselves at that time. Then I and a large group of players were sent to Vorskla on loan. Although I was called up to the Ukrainian national team 4 times," Antiukhin said.

The striker played the 1997/1998 season and half of the following season in the shirt of Vorskla Poltava, where he played 28 league games in two years and scored 8 goals. In 1999, Antiukhin returned to Simferopol, agreeing to the offer of the Crimean coach Valerii Petrov.

At Tavria, Oleksiii once again crossed paths with the experienced Oleksandr Haidash, who, after the occupation of Crimea, not only took Russian citizenship but also supported the war in Ukraine: in the fall of 2022, he played in a veterans' match with a huge Z on his chest. However, in the early 2000s, the future traitors failed to restore the shining tandem.

Nevertheless, in two incomplete seasons at Tavria, Antiukhin played 45 matches in the Premier League and scored 16 goals, becoming the second sniper of Simferopol in the championship (53 goals) since independence after the same Haidash. In total, the Zaporizhzhia forward played 174 matches in the Premier League and scored 63 goals.

After Tavria, Antiukhin's career went downhill. In 2001, the striker began traveling around the Russian outback: he started with Elista in the second division of the Russian championship, then played for Chornomorets Novorossiysk and Dynamo Stavropol.

In 2004, the forward returned to Ukraine. He finished his professional career in 2005 in Simferopol's Igroservis. After that, Oleksii coached various Crimean teams.

In 2013, Antiukhin took charge of Tavria U-19 and in November of the same year, he completed a coaching course from the FFU along with Andrii Shevchenko and many other famous players. However, as soon as Russia annexed Crimea in February 2014, the former Ukrainian striker rushed to get a passport with a two-headed chicken on it.

Already in the status of a citizen of the Russian Federation, in July 2016, Antiukhin took over the helm of KFU-Bakhchisarai, and then became an assistant to the head coach of the "national team of the annexed peninsula" Valerii Petrov.

But the Crimean "national team" did not last long, and in order not to be forgotten, Antiukhin took part in all the veteran, friendly and propaganda tournaments that have been organized in recent years on the Russian-occupied peninsula.

In particular, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian invaders in February 2022, Antuukhin took part in a match in memory of the famous Crimean journalist Garrinald Nemirovskyi, who supported the occupation of the peninsula and was a member of the so-called Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports of Crimea.

Also, apparently not from a good life, Antiukhin led the Zuysk Chayka, which played in the championship of the Belogorsk district. And in the summer of 2023, the once successful striker resumed his playing career at the age of 51 and now plays in the first league of the Simferopol District Open Football Championship as part of the Dubky club from the village of the same name.

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