How Ukrainians are uniting behind Shakhtar in London

Shakhtar Donetsk will be playing Champions League home games at Stamford Bridge this season. It is a scenario nobody wants ideally, but the UK's Ukrainian community is making the best of a difficult situation. Shakhtar's UK-based fans relish opportunities to watch their team, with Crystal Palace's away section selling out in an hour Artem Genne's favourite footballing memory is standing on the Donbas Arena pitch, waving the Champions League flag, before Shakhtar Donetsk faced Chelsea. That was in 2012. Two years later, the Russian-backed capture of Donetsk led many Ukrainians to leave the city, including ardent Shakhtar supporter Genne. A large number fled to other areas of Ukraine and beyond, with the region's football club forced to find a new home.

Fourteen years later, they are still searching. It has led Shakhtar to Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv in Ukraine, and Poland, Slovenia and Germany for European games. This season they will play their home Champions League fixtures at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, with Genne, who now lives in the West Midlands, aiming to attend all four – starting with AEK Athens on Wednesday. "When the invasion started, lots of people left, thinking that it's all going to be over in several weeks, we'll be coming back. But unfortunately, that didn't happen," he says. "When I meet people from my home area