Vasiliy Lomachenko is the latest combat sports athlete to join in fight for Ukraine

Vasiliy Lomachenko is the latest combat sports athlete to join in fight for Ukraine.

ESPN’s No. 8 pound-for-pound boxer Vasiliy Lomachenko is the latest in combat sports athletes to take up arms to protect Ukraine from the Russian invasion.

According to ESPN, Lomachenko joined a “territorial defense battalion”

The former Olympic medalist posted a photo and statement to Facebook on Sunday.

Vasiliy Lomachenko, Vitali Klitschko and Yaroslav Amosov among fighters joining the cause

“The Belgorod-Dnestrovsky Territorial Defense Battalion has been formed and armed. In the territorial defense, boxer Vasily Lomachenko informed the mayor Vitaly Grazhdan,” the statement reads in English.

Lomachenko joins other combat sports athletes including boxers Vitali Klitschko, who is the mayor of Kiev and his brother Wladimir. Additionally, Bellator champion Yaroslav Amosov has also taken up arms for his country.

“Probably, many will think that I ran away, I’m hiding or something like that, but this is not so,” Amosov said. “I took my family to the safe zone. Now I have returned and will defend this country as best I can, with what I can. I love this country, our own. Russia came to our house and started a war here, many people are dying – innocents, women and children. We have to defend this country, and we succeed, friends. And we will succeed because the truth is behind us.”