His opponent offered to play without the Russian flag, but the match will not take place at OKTAGON 31. What does Kalashnik say?

OKTAGON 31 lost the Andrey Kalashnik-Arthur Karavaev fight due to Russian aggression on Ukrainian territory when the owners of the organization decided to cancel it to prevent its misuse for propaganda. What does Kalashnik, a Ukrainian native living in Brno, have to say about this?

The whole world has been dealing with one thing in particular in recent days: Russia has invaded Ukraine and there is heavy fighting on its territory. The military conflict is also affecting sporting events, and on Friday one of the matches at the OKTAGON 31 tournament was cancelled because of it.

Andrei Kalashnik, a Czech citizen but born in Ukraine, was due to take on Russian fighter Arthur Karavaev at Saturday’s event. However, the expected fight will not take place.

“I like it here, it’s my home, but the situation in Ukraine has affected me. I still have family there. I called my grandmother, who lives there, and we talked about her clearing out the glasses from the basement so she has somewhere to hide,” Kalashnik described the situation on his Instagram.

However, he treated the fight with Karavaev as a sporting event, which is why he wanted to participate in the match. He even met with the opposing team, who made it clear that the match would have no political overtones. Karavaev even offered to play without the Russian flag.

Even so, the match will not take place. “Oktagon described that the match can be misused in the framework of propaganda, there is a security risk. If I understand correctly, they probably got the information from the higher-ups. We wanted to fight Arthur. Octagon is trying to protect us. I’m definitely not spitting on him,” Kalashnik added.

Kalashnik also made his stance clear and defined himself against the war in Ukraine, his opponent Karavaev did the same on Instagram, calling for a peaceful solution.

Source:: Instagram, Oktagon MMA