Anatoly Timoshuk, the former Ukraine international who is currently an assistant at Zenit Saint Petersburg, is under fire for his silence in the face of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“Where are you? Where did you put your tongue? Are you our compatriot? Did you draw the flag on your face just to show off?”, asked in a video clip posted on social media Oleksandr Aliyev, a former teammate of Timoshuk in the Ukrainian national team.

Timoshuk has been part of Zenit’s coaching staff since 2017, after he ended his football career, having represented, in addition to Saint Petersburg, among others, Shakhtar Donetsk and Bayern Munich. He is also the most featured player in the Ukrainian national team (144 matches).

Not many understand Timoshuk’s silence, not least because the only Ukrainian player who was at Zenit, Yaroslav Rakitsky, asked last week to terminate his contract.

For Ruslan Malinovsky, the current star of the Ukrainian national team, who works in Atalanta (Italy), has joined the list of critics. And he considered that “what Timoshuk is doing is not right, his marks will be forgotten and he will no longer be a legend in Ukrainian football.”