Surviving Russian Drone Attacks: How Polina Buhrova And Yevheniia Kantemyr Left Ukraine To Keep Playing For It

An alarm at 5am means nothing more than the start of a normal day to people living in peaceful countries. In Ukraine's Kharkiv, it can mean a siren has gone off for a drone attack or a bombing, and that sound is the only warning before you run. For Polina Buhrova and Yevheniia Kantemyr, that difference is not a memory from a war they escaped.

It is a life they still carry with them, all the way to a badminton court in New Delhi, where both players are competing at the BWF World Championships 2026, being held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

For most athletes here, winning is the whole point. For Buhrova and Kantemyr, winning matters too, but stepping on court means something bigger: it tells the world their country is still fighting.

"I am representing my country as a fighter and to show how Ukraine is fighting, believing and growing, and I am proud of it," Buhrova told Outlook India.

Neither of them set out to become a symbol of a country at war. One was headed for a piano stage before a shuttlecock ever found her hands. The other simply wanted to keep playing badminton, and when there was no way to do that at home, the war left her no choice but to leave her family behind and find a place where she could.

Badminton, for both, was never meant to carry this much weight. It became the thing that carried them somewhere they never planned to go, and somewhere along the way, the loudest way they had left to say their country is still standing.

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The Piano Lesson Which Led To A Racquet

For Buhrova, the act of resistance through badminton would never have come if it wasn't for the piano.

She did not choose badminton for the love of the game. She chose it, in a roundabout way, because of the piano.

"I was studying in art school, and I was a pianist, playing piano, dancing, and singing. But I was a fat baby, and my piano teacher said I don't look so nice on the stage, because I was playing really well, and if I also looked a bit better, it would be nicer for the audience, the spectators and judges."

"So they sent me to any sport we had in the school, and it was badminton. That's why I started badminton, and then somehow I ended up fully in badminton, not in music anymore," she said, laughing at the memory. Eleven years on, the piano has not entirely left her.

That accidental start eventually carried her to the sport's biggest stages, but it also meant that when war reached her city, badminton became one more thing she had to fight to hold on to.

Buhrova is from Kharkiv, and was still there when the war began.

"The situation there is really bad, and I still don't understand the point of Russians and whatever is going on, because now they are just bombing civilian places, hospitals, newborn children, citizens. It's really hard for me, but that also gives me a lot of power, and I am really proud to represent my country as a fighter and to show how Ukraine is fighting, believing, and growing."

The war did not just threaten her city, it took away her ability to train there at all.

"There is no way to practice professionally in Ukraine, so now I'm staying with my team in Italy. We are supported by ourselves and our federation. I want to say a big thank you to the Ukrainian Badminton Federation and our country's ministry. But we are practicing in Italy, living there, and can't go home, unfortunately."

The European Championships bronze medallist remembers her first experience of war clearly. It came months before she ever left home, training under fire in Kharkiv itself.

"It was scary. I remember playing in the national championship, I stayed there for a couple of months, practicing under the bombs. In one moment, it was just an alarm going, and you needed to throw everything on the floor and just run to the shelter, to the underground. That's just how it was. At that moment you don't think about the phone, the bag, nothing, you think about how to run faster to the shelter."

Leaving did not mean leaving the war behind. It follows her through every patchy phone call home.

"All my family is in Ukraine now, so I'm keeping in touch with them. But it's difficult, because many times they just don't have any internet, any connection, anything. So it's really hard. I also know people who are staying in Ukraine. Many of my relatives are also there, my mother and cousins. They are all in Ukraine."

Another memory from the earliest days of the invasion has never left her either.

"I remember, it was the first day. We played the first day of the competition, and we went to bed with small backpacks close to us, telling ourselves that if the war starts, we need to take those small things and just run away. Nobody could believe it. And unfortunately, at 5am, we saw the bomb coming through to the next building, close to us, in the window."

"My ex-coach started to shout and started to accompany all the kids, and we were just running underground immediately. It was a terrible feeling, I can guarantee that. I really wish for nobody to experience that," she added.

In New Delhi, she beat Prakriti Bharath of the UAE 21-13, 20-22, 21-14 to advance, and faces fourth seed Chen Yufei next.

Yevheniia Kantemyr Was Sixteen When She Had To Choose Badminton Over Home

Buhrova is not fighting this battle alone. Twenty-one-year-old Yevheniia Kantemyr reached New Delhi through a win that took its own detour through tricky, windy conditions on court.

Like Buhrova, winning is only part of why she is here. Representing Ukraine at this level carries its own responsibility. "It's important, because we're top players now, and we're happy that we can represent, and show good results at a high level, just to make the country proud," she told Outlook India.

That sense of duty was forged early, and at a cost. Kantemyr has not lived in Ukraine for four years.

"I'm not living in Ukraine, four years already. The situation there is quite bad, so I was forced to leave the country."

She was sixteen at the time, and leaving meant leaving her parents behind too. "I was forced to leave at 16, away from my parents, because we stayed in separate places, with my parents, with my brother. That was very hard in the beginning. Now I've adapted." It has taken time to settle.

"It was hard in the beginning, but I adapted, especially because I was 16 when I left, so I was a kid. Now it's a bit better because I have a team which supports me, a federation, a country, so it helps."

Four years on, her family remains scattered across borders.

"They live in Slovakia now, a country close to Ukraine. They are safe, but we stay separate because they live there and I have to stay in Italy for practice."

"We're based in Italy now because our coaches are Italian. So we stay there." The visits home are rare. "I see them maximum twice a year, so it's hard."

That separation began even before Italy, in France, where her path away from home first started. "I just wanted to play badminton, and where my parents decided to be, I wasn't able to practice and stay. So my coach helped me go to France. They found a centre for me, and I lived and trained there. I was just focused."

Nearly four years into the war, she has learned to compartmentalise on court, even as the news from home stays hard to shut out.

The full-scale Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022. Talking about its impact on her game, she said, "War is not easy for anybody, but now that it has gone on for so long, we know how to manage these things already, because it's happened to us for a long time now. When I'm on court, I think only about the badminton."

What happens beyond the court is harder to switch off. "The situation in Kyiv, the capital, is terrible. My home is safe, but it's a very bad situation now, and it's not getting better after four years. It's very sad and frustrating."

She will face eighth seed Tomoka Miyazaki in the round of 32.

"Russian Athletes Should Just Stay In Their Beautiful Home"

For both players, the war has shaped not just where they live and train, but how they feel about sharing a tournament with Russian competitors. Asked whether she thinks about facing a Russian athlete on court, and what a win would mean, Buhrova did not hesitate.

"I would give everything in my heart, and not only that. But I really wish that it will not happen, because I think it's unfair that Russian athletes are playing, even without the flag or whatever. I think they should stay in their beautiful home, and just say thank you to their great government and all the people there," she told Outlook India.

Kantemyr's position is just as direct. "Don't allow Russian athletes to play. That was a big mistake, to allow them to participate, I think." Pressed on whether the athletes themselves should bear that blame rather than their government, she pointed to their conduct.

"You don't know what those athletes have done, because some of them were posting things on social media too. I understand, but it's not nice." On court, though, there has been no confrontation, because there has been no contact at all.

"I never met them on court, I didn't play against them. We saw them off-court, in the hall, but nothing personal to them, just to the country."

"Ukrainian athletes are standing as strong as the country," as Buhrova put it. For her and Kantemyr, every match in New Delhi is not just a contest, it is proof that a country under siege still refuses to bow.