Shakhtar Donetsk announced the transfer of Ukrainian defender Yaroslav Rakitskiy.

33-year-old defender moved to the Pitmen as a free agent. The contract with the player is calculated until the end of the 2022/23 season, according to the official website of the Donetsk team..

Rakitskiy is one of Shakhtar's most famous trainees, he played more than 300 matches for the Orange-and-Blacks. In January 2019, after 10 years of playing for the Pitmen's first team, Yaroslav moved to Zenit St.

Petersburg, which is why he stopped being called up to the Ukrainian national team.

After the start of a full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, Yaroslav terminated the contract with Zenit, and also called on the Russians to stop the war that their state had begun against Ukraine.

In the spring of 2022, Rakitskiy joined Shakhtar to take part in charity matches in support of Ukraine during the war against the Russian occupiers. Yaroslav spent the first part of the 2022/23 season in the Turkish club Adana Demirspor.