When Serhii Bohachuk steps into the ring against Vergil Ortiz on Saturday night (August 10) in Las Vegas, it will be the most high-profile and high-stakes encounter of his professional boxing career.

But it won’t be the biggest fight of his life.

For Bohachuk, as for Ukrainians everywhere, that fight began on February 23, 2022 when Russian forces invaded their country and turned so many lives upside-down and inside-out. 

At the time, Bohachuk, born in 1995 in Vinnytsia, a town of approximately 360,000 about 160 miles southwest of Kyiv, had a professional record of 20-1 with every one of his wins – and his sole loss, to Brandon Adams – coming inside the distance. Since turning pro in 2017, he had been based in California; 18 of his 21 paid outings in the ring had been in the United States.

But, toward the end of 2021, his visa was up for renewal and so he returned home to Vinnytsia. To his frustration, however, he found himself stuck in limbo for longer than he expected.

“Six months, I am back in Ukraine,” Bohachuk told BoxingScene recently. “In six months, I cannot make appointment in consulate. I don’t know why.”

Then, one morning, before he could make another attempt, his mother woke him up with bad news.

Overnight, his country had been plunged into war. Not that Bohachuk believed it at first.

“I said, ‘No, no, no. Maybe you had a dream,’” he recalls. “But then I take the phone and look at Internet and yes, it’s true.”

At a stroke, able-bodied Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 were prohibited from leaving the country. Of the myriad thoughts that crashed chaotically through his mind, one came to the fore: he could presumably forget about the consulate, forget about a visa, forget about the United States, forget about resuming his boxing career.

“For the first couple of months after the start of the war, I didn’t understand what would happen,” he explains. “Maybe I have to finish boxing and maybe go to military.”

Amid the confusion and fear, one ray of light was his promoter Tom Loeffler. Even though he had no idea if Bohachuk would ever be able to resume his boxing career, he was, says Bohachuk, unhesitatingly supportive throughout.

“He called and asked what I needed, what my family needed. If we needed money, he sent money,” Bohachuk gushes. And then, after the war had been underway for five or six months, Loeffler was able to help secure paperwork to allow him to leave the country, after all.

Bohachuk was not only by this stage resigned to military service, he embraced it. He wanted to help his country repel the invaders. But, he says, he kept being told that he would be of more value elsewhere. And when Oleksandr Usyk was granted dispensation to face Anthony Joshua in a rematch, and after his success in that rematch provided a tangible fillip to his countrymen’s morale, the doors opened for Bohachuk to follow suit. Loeffler and others were able to arrange for him to procure a new US visa – but to get it, he would have to go to Poland, as so many Ukrainian refugees had done. 

As before, however, he did not know exactly when his meeting at the embassy would take place. Hotels in Warsaw were booked solid, so he had to grab any room he could find for a couple of days, then find another, then another, and another. 

“I’m waiting in Poland one month, and 10 times I have to change my hotel,” he says. But that was not the worst issue had to deal with it. 

About a week after he arrived in the Polish capital, his hometown of Vinnytsia was hit by a Russian missile strike, killing 27 people and injuring 80 others. The missiles landed in the town center, in an area where he would walk most mornings – around the time that the attack occurred.  It was enough to make him reconsider his decision to leave, but he recalled the words of a close friend of his, who had joined the military shortly after the war began. 

“My closest friend went in the military, and I said ‘I’m going to join with you. We’ll join together,’” he recalls. “And he said, ‘No, you are needed in boxing. You are a champion. Are you a professional soldier or a professional boxer?’ ‘I’m a boxer.’ ‘You need to box. You need to go to the USA and hold up the Ukrainian flag. That’s what you need to do.’” 

Finally, in November 2022, he was back in California and back in the ring. He beat Aaron Coley inside two rounds and followed that up with wins over Nathaniel Gallimore and Patrick Allotey. This March, he was slated to face Sebastian Fundora on the undercard of Tim Tszyu’s clash with Keith Thurman but when Thurman withdrew through injury, Fundora took his place and Bohachuk faced off with Brian Mendoza – and beat him comprehensively in perhaps the best outing of his career.

Then fate twisted again. Tszyu signed to face Vergil Ortiz on Saturday but had to drop out because a cut on his scalp from a Fundora elbow had not properly healed. Step forward once again Bohachuk, who is confident of providing another upset.

The battle with Ortiz, however, is secondary to the one his countrymen – including his brother, who did join the military – are fighting, and the battle of inspiration he is waging on their behalf.

“This is a stupid war,” he sighs. “I want it to end. People are dying: civilians, children. It’s a crazy war.”

And if he can help that come about by giving his fellow Ukrainians inspiration and belief, then that’s what he’ll do.

“I’m proud to be Ukrainian and with every fight I want to show Ukrainian people that Ukraine is a strong country. My goal now is to motivate my country: Be strong, be a winner, be a champion.” 

Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.