Klitschko: More Than a Fight: a compelling account of boxer-turned-Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko

Casting the Ukraine war as a boxing contest might seem a bit on the nose, but Kevin MacDonald’s latest documentary finds the characters and the stakes. In one corner we have the Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin, champ for the imperial cause of lies, vainglory and ruination; in the other, Vitali Klitschko, Ukraine’s multiple world heavyweight champion turned Kyiv mayor and defender of its democratic aspirations. Putin doesn’t appear much – just two glimpses of him gaslighting Ukrainians and giving a champagne toast to his generals’ “dignified” bombardments – but his Soviet revanchism and belligerent worldview are clear counterpoint to Klitschko’s story of abandoning his devout serviceman father’s cold-war blinkers and finding freedom and fraternity on the international boxing stage. And, in contrast to Putin’s rumoured use of body doubles, Vitali Klitschko comes as a tag team with his lookalike brother Wladimir, who followed him into the boxing record books and now travels abroad as unofficial envoy and activist for Ukraine’s war cause.  

In Kyiv, we see plenty of Vitali in public service across the winter of 2022 and 2023: on the street, talking with children bombed out of their apartment; in a corner of his office, addressing the world’s media through an iPad; at a memorial service consoling war widows; on a night mission to friends at the front, bringing them supplies and moral support. (Vitali’s patriotic back story is also succinctly traced: he became mayor in 2014 shortly after taking a lead at the Maidan uprising; “more than a fight” was a boxing commentator’s phrase for Klitschko’s motivation in the 2004 Danny Williams title bout, amid Ukraine’s Orange revolution against Russian control.)  

More surprising, and lending another layer of contest, is his evident rivalry with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The film dates this back to Zelenskiy’s days as a comedian, when he mocked Klitschko for his (delightful) verbal gaffes, though isn’t clear if that was expression or cause of discord. Today it’s a political enmity that persists amid war, though the film fingers Zelenskiy as the pettier and more authoritarian politician. Klitschko bites his tongue, gives the camera a side look, and travels to show solidarity with a fellow mayor in Lviv pushed out by Zelenskiy’s party.  

So goes the perennial vigil for peace and freedom. Klitschko admits it takes a toll – and his ex wife and two of his sons count themselves as sacrifices – but in his resilience and courage as well as his accessible and direct style, he’s a compellingly heroic emblem of why and how we fight.  

► Klitschko: More Than a Fight is on Sky Documentaries now.