{"id":1124248,"date":"2022-06-16T13:54:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T13:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/06\/16\/maybe-theyll-kill-me-ex-russia-captain-after-opposing-ukraine-war\/"},"modified":"2022-06-16T13:54:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T13:54:45","slug":"maybe-theyll-kill-me-ex-russia-captain-after-opposing-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/06\/16\/maybe-theyll-kill-me-ex-russia-captain-after-opposing-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe they&#8217;ll kill me &#8211; Ex Russia captain after opposing Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image_2022-06-16_125058561-696x392.png\"   alt=\"Igor Denisov ended his playing career with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2019 (PC: Getty Images)\" title=\"Igor Denisov ended his playing career with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2019 (PC: Getty Images)\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Igor Denisov ended his playing career with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2019 (PC: Getty Images)<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>   <!--  --><\/p>\n<p>Former Russia captain Igor Denisov has become one of the highest-profile athletes still living in the country to speak out against the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Denisov, who earned 54 caps between 2008 and 2016, called the invasion a \u201ccatastrophe\u201d and a \u201ccomplete horror\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The ex-midfielder made the comments in an interview with sports journalist Nobel Arustamyan\u00a0published on YouTube.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe they\u2019ll put me in jail or kill me for these words, but I\u2019m telling it like it is,\u201d said the 38-year-old.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Denisov, who played more than 300 games for Zenit St Petersburg before ending his playing career with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2019, said that he \u201cloved his country\u201d and did not want to leave Russia.<\/p>\n<p>He has also written to President Vladimir Putin to express his opposition to the invasion, which started on 24 February.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a proud guy. This was after three or four days,\u201d Denisov added. \u201cI even said to him that I am ready to go on my knees before you so that he would stop it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Very few public figures still living in Russia have openly opposed the \u201cspecial military operation\u201d, as Moscow terms it.<\/p>\n<p>However, Nadya Karpova, a striker for the women\u2019s national team who now lives in Spain, has\u00a0recently spoken out against the war.<\/p>\n<p>Russian media outlets can even be fined or blocked for using the words \u201cwar\u201d or \u201cinvasion\u201d to describe what is happening in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>During Denisov\u2019s interview with Arustamyan, certain words used by him to refer to Russian actions in Ukraine appear to have been blanked out, with a crackling sound played instead.<\/p>\n<p>And while Sports.ru, one of the country\u2019s most prominent sports websites, reported Denisov\u2019s comments, it did not use the words \u201cwar\u201d or \u201cinvasion\u201d, instead referring to his discussions on \u201clife after 24 February\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"LRNQEGetcw4\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Badwam Sports News on Adom TV (16-6-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LRNQEGetcw4?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Igor Denisov ended his playing career with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2019 (PC: Getty Images) Former Russia captain Igor Denisov has become one of the highest-profile athletes still living in the country to speak out against the war in Ukraine. Denisov, who earned 54 caps between 2008 and 2016, called the invasion a \u201ccatastrophe\u201d and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1124250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1099,9151,17860,5339,12875,5440,4071],"class_list":{"0":"post-1124248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-captain","9":"tag-kill","10":"tag-opposing","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-theyll","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}