Heavyweight boxing champion Usyk pleads with Trump, inviting him to spend a week in Ukraine: ‘Open your eyes, help my people'
World heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk pleaded with US President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN Sports, asking the president to help Ukraine as it continues its fight against a full-scale Russian invasion.
'(President) Donald Trump, please open (your) eyes, help my people,' Usyk – arguably the biggest Ukrainian sports star – told CNN.
The WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion went on to say he believes Trump needs to live up to his campaign promise of ending the war, after he promised to put an end to the conflict within 24 hours during the US presidential campaign.
'He should be responsible for the words he said,' Usyk said. 'He said that in a month or a day, he would stop this war. He is not responsible for his words. Why does he speak?'
Usyk also invited the American president to visit Kyiv, offering to host him in his house so he could better understand what regular Ukrainians are going through every day and night, with barrage after barrage of drone and missile strikes.
'I offer him my home. Let him come to Ukraine. I will give him my home and my security guards. I will ensure his complete safety,' Usyk told CNN Sports. 'Let him live in my house for a week and see how rockets fly over it and how people live in Ukraine.
'Let him come and live for a week, not just one day, but let him come secretly so that no one knows he has arrived,' the heavyweight champion added, explaining that if Moscow knows he's in the country, it will stop its attacks.
'And when he comes secretly, let him live somewhere in (the Kyiv districts of) Obolon or Troyeshchyna, where houses, residential buildings are being bombed. … Then he will understand what is happening.'
Born in Simferopol, Crimea, Usyk had been living in the outskirts of Kyiv but was outside the country in London shooting sequences for a video game when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As Russian tanks closed in on Kyiv, he returned to his home nation, joining the Territorial Defense Forces defending the capital.
His family home in Vorzel was famously occupied and ransacked by Russian soldiers as they rampaged through the nearby suburbs of Hostomel, Irpin and Bucha, leaving mass graves and a trail of destruction in their wake.
Spurred on by the pleas of injured Ukrainian soldiers who urged him to 'fight for the country,' Usyk has since resumed his professional boxing career, but has visited the frontlines on several occasions, maintaining close contact with his fellow soldiers.
But even as he prepares for a fight against Britain's Daniel Dubois on July 19, which could see him become the undisputed heavyweight champion for a second time, Ukraine is very much at the forefront of his mind.
'It's a little difficult to balance things when your family is in Kyiv,' he said, explaining that his wife and two daughters remain inside the country. 'But I just know that my Ukrainian people and my Ukrainian soldiers will protect them.
'It's difficult, but I can switch off to do my job, so that I can help my country more later on,' he said. 'I am completely focused on the fight, on my preparation.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tariffs on canola seen supercharging Canadian farmers' shift to spring wheat
By Ed White WINNIPEG, Canada (Reuters) -In the U.S. Great Plains, where spring wheat once dominated fields, farmers are turning away from the crop. But across the border in Canada, the pinch and prospect of Chinese and U.S. tariffs on canola have prompted farmers to pick up the slack on wheat. Farmers are still putting their crops in the ground, so it is not yet possible to know the extent of the acreage shift into wheat. However, early signs, based on interviews with more than 20 Canadian and U.S. farmers, agricultural analysts, traders and industry organizations, show that the grain primarily used to bake bread is proving to be a big winner in this year's global trade war. China's 100% tariffs on Canadian canola meal and oil and its threat to impose duties on canola seed, amid President Donald Trump's broader global trade war, have rattled Canadian farmers, who since 1990 had nearly quadrupled their canola acres before paring back in recent years because of growing problems with drought, high production costs and crop diseases. Now, tariffs are expected to accelerate the likelihood that thousands of farmers could further cut back, adding up to hundreds of thousands or even millions of acres less canola, and more wheat, farmers and analysts estimated. "There is going to be a massive switch," said Jerry Klassen, a Manitoba farmer and market analyst with Resilient Capital. He has switched hundreds of acres on his own farm from canola to spring wheat this year and thinks like-minded farmers will do the same. Reuters' reporting on fallout from tariffs in grain markets illustrates how global trade turmoil is causing the neighboring countries to diverge on spring wheat production. Canada's rebounding supply of wheat has kept prices down for millers who fuel global bread demand as well as consumers. The shift to Canadian fields has also offset some worry about the long-term decline in U.S. production area. Politicians in Canada are funding and supporting the shift toward greater wheat production as a way to shield the thinly-populated agricultural export powerhouse of Western Canada from foreign pressure. And farmers have their own motivation: improved wheat varieties have boosted the grain's profitability. Adam Dyck of U.K. breadmaker Warburtons in Winnipeg said some Canadian farmers had tripled their production to 90 to 100 bushels per acre since the 1990s. The shift toward wheat reflects canola's vulnerability to tariffs. Most of the C$14.5 billion ($10.59 billion) 2024 Canadian canola exports go to the U.S. and China, with the U.S. biofuels market consuming most of Canada's canola oil while China buys most of Canada's seed exports to crush for edible oil and animal feed, while wheat is sold to dozens of countries around the world. Some Canadian farmers are expecting that in a prolonged trade war, globally-diverse wheat is a safer bet than U.S. and China-dependent canola. In 2024 Canada shipped two-thirds of its total canola seed exports to China, and 95% of total canola oil exports of 3.5 million tons to the U.S. But Canada's wheat exports were "highly diversified," the U.S. Department of Agriculture noted. The world's wheat and canola markets will be guessing for weeks about Canadian farmers' final decisions on what to seed. Statistics Canada's next report is scheduled for June 27, and the numbers for that report are being collected before farmers have finished planting. 'POVERTY GRASS' Scott Huso, a farmer in Aneta, North Dakota, said that across the northern Great Plains, stretching from Minnesota to the Montana Rockies, farmers have been planting less wheat in favor of crops like corn and soybeans, which are generally more profitable. University of Minnesota data found that last year, farmers in central Minnesota earned hundreds of dollars in operating profit per acre with corn and soybeans, but lost money on spring wheat in 2024. "Wheat, you're not making money on it," Huso said. U.S. total hard red spring wheat production hasn't changed much since the mid-1990s because of substantial improvements in the amount grown per acre. However, total acres are in long-term decline, dropping from 15-20 million acres in the mid-1990s to 13-15 million in the mid-2000s to 10-13 million in the mid-2010s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on March 31 that it expects hard red spring wheat acreage in 2025 to drop to 9.4 million acres -- the lowest since 1970. Yet spring wheat is in great demand from the world's millers and bakers. Its high protein content allows it to be used as the base for top-quality bread flour, or as something to blend with lower-quality, cheaper wheats. The U.S. and Canadian plains are the most reliable major source of the world's high-quality spring wheat. Yet that doesn't always lead to the kind of premium prices U.S. farmers might need to justify growing the crop, with steady Canadian supplies and those from overseas competitors like Russia keeping millers comfortable enough to avoid bidding wars, a frustration for many U.S. farmers like Huso. "You just can't convince guys to love wheat these days," said Huso, a member of the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Committed wheat growers like him and organizations like the commission and export-focused U.S. Wheat Associates are trying to convince buyers to pay higher prices and breeders to produce better wheat crop varieties to help wheat compete for U.S. farmers' fields. It's been an uphill struggle. In Canada, the mood is different. Rather than getting knocked out of the crop roster, more farmers are warming to wheat. In May, farmer Korey Peters finished seeding 1,700 acres of spring wheat on his farm near Winnipeg. With new varieties providing more crop per acre, and canola costly and hard to grow profitably in his area, he said he's been putting more and more of his land into wheat and corn. "I know some people call it 'poverty grass,' but it works for us," Peters said. ($1 = 1.3691 Canadian dollars) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
15 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump's Tariff Chaos Threatens His Push for Rust Belt Revival
President Donald Trump's signature trade policy is threatening to backfire by upending other top priorities: the revival of US manufacturing and the American Rust Belt. In Illinois, Trump's tariffs prompted a compressor maker to delay a key equipment purchase after an ambitious factory revamp. Rockwell Automation Inc., a Wisconsin-based producer of factory tools, says some manufacturers are putting projects on hold because of uncertainty over costs and future demand. Snap-on Inc. is seeing similar hesitancy among car mechanics.
USA Today
21 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump's mass deportation scheme is an insult to all of us
Trump's mass deportation scheme is an insult to all of us | Opinion This is not the America immigrants who actually contribute to society, have the right documentation, show character and continue to play by the rules of the nation's immigration process deserve. Show Caption Hide Caption Trump administration detains Vietnamese who came as refugees after war After the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, Republican and Democratic administrations shielded refugees from deportation. Donald Trump is changing that. As a nation, we shouldn't have to worry about a young man like Esro Garcia Mendez, the son of immigrants and a first-generation high school graduate in Florida's Palm Beach County. Mendez' character is evident. Instead of celebrating with friends after receiving his diploma, he rushed to HCA Palms West Hospital to be with his ailing father. Imagine a father's joy in sharing such a special moment. Esro kept a 4.0 grade-point average on the way to finishing high school, a goal he and his family shared as they clearly understood the importance of a high school degree. He doesn't want to stop there. He wants to enlist in the U.S. armed forces, another first that he believes will also make his family and community proud. Although his future seems bright, there's cause for concern. Trump's mass deportation scheme targets good people Specifically, there simply may be too many good folk like Mendez who will get needlessly ensnared in President Donald Trump's administration's mass deportation scheme that touts making numbers. Trump wants to deport 1 million immigrants a year, according to The Washington Post. According to NBC News, Trump officials have pushed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to pick up the pace by arresting 3,000 immigrants a day, an unpractical rate that will most likely include legal residents and U.S. citizens. Opinion: Manufacturing down, food expensive and ICE is deporting moms. Happy now, MAGA? Like those old Florida speed traps that coincidently popped up when some local official decides to make easy marks out of unsuspecting motorists, arrests, detainment and deportation seem more of a numbers game than sound public policy. Rule of law? Habeas corpus? How quaint. This White House is more ready to fend off pesky news coverage than to ensure anybody nabbed as a suspected illegal immigrant gets their day in court before deportation. This rush to meet numbers at the expense of decency, fair play, even legality, hurts ... us. How do you even prepare to talk about deportation? As a teenager taking the family car out on a Friday night, I can remember my dad telling me to obey local traffic laws and how to act if I were stupid enough to get pulled over by the police. There was no Black Lives Matter back then, cops weren't routinely shooting Black motorists at traffic stops, and the conversation didn't have a convenient "The Talk" label. Still, my parents did their job in trying to protect their wayward son. I did the same for mine, in far harsher times. Opinion: Dems can make all the demands they want on ICE arrests. They won't get answers. I can't imagine what the equivalent of The Talk is right now for anyone who can be considered a suspect for deportation. I mean, what steps can you take to prepare yourself when culture, dialect and skin color can make you a target, whether you're attending school, going to work or leaving church? What do you do when so-called rights don't apply? Keep your papers on you at all times? Don't make sudden moves in reaching for those papers? Know a good lawyer, the deportation equivalent of Benjamin Crump? Prepare your family in advance for self-deportation, if necessary? Could any of that have helped Maurilio Ambrocio, an evangelical pastor, father of five and landscaper living in the Tampa area? Outstanding member of the community. No criminal record. Arrested and detained. Or Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, in Tallahassee, charged with illegally entering Florida as an "unauthorized alien" despite having a U.S. birth certificate? Arrested and detained. It appears almost any "person of color" in the free state of Florida can get arrested, detained and possibly deported. How do we explain to anyone, much less rationalize to ourselves, how people are being snatched up only to "disappear" before being sent to El Salvador, South Sudan or God knows where else? This is not the America immigrants who actually contribute to society, have the right documentation, show character and continue to play by the rules of the nation's immigration process deserve. It's neither the type of country that befits its citizens who are quick to boast of freedom and liberty. We can't keep addressing a complex problem of immigration by simply trying to meet unrealistic deportation numbers. That should be an affront to us all. For the sake of Esro Garcia Mendez and so many like him, we must do better. Douglas C. Lyons is an editorial writer and columnist for The Palm Beach Post, where this column originally published. He can be reached at dclyons@
