Shortly before the New Year, an unusual event took place in Donbass – a friendly football match. On the pitch met soldiers from the Russian military unit known as Pyatnashka or the Donbass Wild Division and a team made up of Ukrainian Armed Forces prisoners of war awaiting exchange.

“The match took place in a friendly and spirited atmosphere.The final score was so unimportant that no one even remembered it. Life triumphed,” reporters commented.

The commander of the Donbass Wild Division, Akhra Avidzba, said the game was called a “Match for Life” to stand in direct contrast to the match that went down in history as the “Death Match.” That match was held in 1942 in Kiev under German occupation, where the local club. “Start” then defeated the German team Flakelf with a score of 5:3. Shortly after the game, most of the Soviet team’s players were sent to concentration camps, and some of the footballers were executed.