Klitschko takes on Russians and Zelensky in new film

Documentary examines ex-champion Vitali's role as wartime mayor of Kyiv and asks if he aims to be president of Ukraine

- ALEX PATTLE

Vitali Klitschko, whose footwork was derided even during his reign as world heavyweight champion, carefully steps past the feet of a dead body, moving into an apartment building obliterated by Russian missiles. The mayor of Kyiv, once such a brutal force in the boxing ring, urges those around him to proceed with reverence for the deceased, as they set about sifting through the rubble.

Dusty photographs and torn pages of literature, as Klitschko stresses, would have been among the most cherished possessions of those to have lived there - those to have died there, during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This scene is one of many in Klitschko: More Than a Fight to highlight the duality of the boxer-turned-politician. Vitali, the older brother of Wladimir - also one of the great heavyweights of their generation - became mayor of Kyiv in 2014, shortly after retiring as a fighter.

Vitali has continuously been re-elected, and while the elder Klitschko brother can appear a colder counterpart to his charismatic sibling, there is a dry humour and a warmth beneath his stereotypically steely exterior - one crafted in part by his father, a radically militaristic influence.

Vladimir Klitschko, a soldier who assisted in the clean-up operation after the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant disaster, was so staunch in his Soviet views that his reaction to his sons' first trip to the US was to invent his own conspiracy theory.