A team of midlife cheerleaders in Ukraine refuses to let war defeat them

KHARKIV, Ukraine — In a mirrored basement studio in this front-line city, seven women are practicing jumping splits.

They’re in their 50s and 60s — some have grandchildren. They wear matching Ukraine T-shirts and shake silvery pompoms to the beat of “She’s A Lady” by Tom Jones.

This is Sunrise, a competitive cheerleading squad. They have embraced this feel-good American sport as a way to cope with extreme stress and anxiety during four years of Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine.

“We train no matter what,” says Iryna Nesterenko, the squad’s captain. “When it’s dark, and we’re walking through the street while everything is burning. When there’s no light. I tell my girls: ‘We are the light.'”

Nesterenko, the squad’s captain, explains why they chose Sunrise as their name.

“We used to be fearful of the sunrise,” she says. “The war began at dawn. We were often bombed at dawn. But I did not want us to be afraid. I wanted us to find a way to rejoice.”

Since Ukraine became a modern independent state in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it has embraced American culture. Cheerleading began its rise 20 years ago and has surged in popularity since the full-scale war, says Andriy Bolyak, president of the Cheerleading and Cheer Sport Federation of Ukraine.

He says many squads fled the country after the 2022 Russian invasion.

“As of today, though, we are back to prewar numbers. That’s because we have a lot of new teams,” he says.

Bolyak attributes the rise in cheerleading’s popularity to Ukrainians seeking emotional respite from wartime stress and terror. Only 4% of Ukrainians describe their mental health as good, according to a January survey by Helsi, the largest medical information system in Ukraine.

Bolyak says that though children make up most of the teams, several new ones are composed of women over 50, including Nice Ladies, a team profiled in a 2024 documentary. Like Sunrise, Nice Ladies also hail from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where Bolyak says some of the first national cheerleading competitions were held.

The city is just 20 miles from the Russian border.

“We were bombed every night”

Nesterenko has lived in Kharkiv nearly all her life. She’s 63, a lifelong athlete who used to be a competitive gymnast.

She meets NPR at a Kharkiv tea house, along with two other Sunrise cheerleaders and the team choreographer.

“How can you distract yourself during a war?” Nesterenko asks. “How about exercising with pompoms?”

She sounds lighthearted but the truth is more painful. The war has traumatized every member of the team.

Nesterenko recalls the terrifying first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Her home was bombed.

“We hid in the basement for five days,” she says. “Then our food ran out, our cat food ran out, everything ran out.”

She and her husband grabbed their cats and drove west. When they returned in 2023, after Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces out of the Kharkiv region, the city was no longer under imminent threat of occupation. Russia, however, was still constantly attacking.

Nesterenko’s friend Inna Skryl, a chemistry teacher, told her the strikes came like clockwork.

“We were bombed every night at the same time,” Skryl says. “We huddled in the hallways. That pushed me into depression.”

The two friends soon realized everyone in their circle was struggling with extreme stress. Nesterenko saw no end to it.

“You think, tomorrow the war will be over, or in a month, or soon but no no no, we are living with this war.” she says. “So we decided to stop waiting and start living.”

“We will heal you”

In 2024, Nesterenko brought pom-poms to an aerobics class she was teaching to friends. Something clicked.

“We moved as one, like a united Ukraine, everything synchronized,” she says. “And suddenly cheerleading was the only choice.”

Cheerleading became more than a wartime sport to distract Nesterenko and her friends from the war. The team’s first name was Best Friends, Nesterenko says, because the women lifted each other up, sometimes literally.

Halyna Plakhuta, a 63-year-old economist, had been a full-time caretaker during the war and had grown physically fragile. She told Nesterenko she had a bad arm and shaky knees and would make a lousy cheerleader.

“I said, look, is there anything you can do about that?” Plakhuta says. “And she made a star out of me.”

Plakhuta says she can now jump high enough now to impress her young granddaughter, who made good-luck amulets for the team when they competed in the European championships.

Every Monday, Plakhuta joins the other cheerleaders in the basement studio. They include a doctor, an accountant and a beautician who makes the team’s costumes.

Natalia Pivovarova is a 59-year-old accountant. She cared for her bedridden mother as Russian attacks blew out their windows.

Cheerleading, she says, has been the best therapy.

“My friends abroad call me, saying they’re depressed,” she says. “And I say, come to Kharkiv. We will heal you.”

“Our best life”

During a recent rehearsal, the cheerleaders line up behind Nesterenko, who cues a medley for their routine. The first song is by ABBA. The women smile and step forward.

“We are living our best life,” Nesterenko declares. “We may train underground, we may huddle in shelters from bombs, but no matter what, this is going to be our best life.”

A few weeks later, the Sunrise cheerleaders arrive in the capital, Kyiv, for a national competition.

They wear navy-blue leotards and rub glitter on their faces.

“We always compete to win,” Nesterenko says. “But really, we have already won.”

It’s a bit of a joke, since Sunrise is the only team in the over-25 age group competing today. Nesterenko, however, is talking about a symbolic victory, one that helped a group of friends in one of Ukraine’s most bombed cities to flex optimism like a muscle.

“Look around,” she says. “Listen to all that joy.”

The auditorium is filled with cheerleaders who are all decades younger, some as young as the Sunrise squad’s own grandchildren. The cheerleaders shriek and clap loudly as the women of Sunrise run to center stage, ready to shine.