Russian ice hockey player accused of dodging army service as he wants to sign up NHL

Alexey Ponomarev, a lawyer for Russian hockey goalie Ivan Fedotov, responded to the player's detention.

"As I informed you earlier, a lawsuit has been filed. We demand his detention be declared illegal and the decision of the call-up draft board in relation to Ivan Fedotov be canceled,” he said. Ponomarev added that he also applied to the military prosecutor's office.

Earlier it became known that it was Fedotov's conflict with the CSKA that caused his problems with military service.

"It is common for Russian national teams to put athletes of military age on the lists, and according to those lists the athletes are called up to sports company. This is the way they are drafted into the army. The process involves the Ministry of Defense and partly the Ministry of Internal Affairs," a source told RIA Novosti noting that the 25-year-old hockey player was not happy with such a procedure.

Ivan Fedotov was detained in St. Petersburg on July 1. The procedure was initiated by the military prosecutor's office, which had sufficient grounds to consider the hockey player an army dodger.

Interestingly, the situation was developing against the background of Ivan Fedotov's transfer to NHL club Philadelphia Flyers.

In April, Fedotov announced that he would soon travel to the United States and sign a contract with the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL).

"This is a new challenge and new opportunities. If you don't try yourself in the NHL, you may then regret it for the rest of your life," the goalkeeper said.

Ivan Fedotov, 25, joined CSKA in 2021. As part of the Russian national team, Fedotov became a silver medalist of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing.