On September 5, 2026, the M13 FIGHTS fighting league held a tournament in Kyiv that went down in history as the first in its practice to be staged on a ring set up directly on a barge. The vessel named “Perla Nera” — “Black Pearl” — was moored to the river terminal on Poshtova (Post) Square, and a podium was laid across the entire deck, along which the fighters made their way to the ring. A flag bearing the vessel's name was hung over the barge, and the pirate theme ran through every element of the staging. League founder Artem Grot explained the choice of water in a post-tournament interview: “I'm really drawn to the story of water. I think this won't be the last event we put on on the water. Overall, I like the analogy with piracy. You saw that a lot of the guys have amputations — we're like pirates of the 21st century. I like the idea, and I'll keep developing it.” Preparation of the barge began on September 4: a ring was built on the deck, lighting equipment and a DJ booth were installed, and a podium was laid along the full length of the vessel.
The Postponement from August 8 and the “Negotiation Window”
The tournament was originally planned for August 8 — the symbolic date 08.08. However, a week after that date, a high-profile shelling of a drone exhibition took place, in which soldiers were killed. The organizers were forced to postpone the event indefinitely. “Our first date was moved: we had planned for 8.08, but a week later there was a high-profile shelling of a drone exhibition, where many soldiers died. Because of that we moved the event to an indefinite date and were waiting for a negotiation window to squeeze ourselves into it,” Grot said. By mid-September, the Russians had shifted to a tactic of regular drone strikes on Kyiv, and holding any mass event seemed practically impossible. Luck, according to Grot, came “from where it was least expected to be received” — from the American delegation.
The Link to the Visit of US Special Envoys
On September 6, special representatives of the US President, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, arrived in Kyiv. A day before their arrival — that is, on September 5, the day of the tournament — Moscow, according to the organizers, decided to “leave the Kyiv residents alone for a few days,” to give Trump's envoys the chance to deliver their messages to the Ukrainian side. The visit of the Americans, by Grot's own assessment, brought no substantial political benefit, but it created a practical “silence window”: throughout the time of the fights, not a single air raid alert sounded in the capital. “It's impossible to arrange and organize this, but I simply believed in our luck and in the power of thinking, of programming. I really wanted it in this format and timed it with the negotiations of big politics,” the league's founder added.
The “Knights” and Fighters with Prostheses: How the Tournament Went
The tournament started around seven in the evening, in the twilight. The fight host, a military man and veteran, Alexander Teren, stepped out onto the barge and announced that the first to the ring were the “knights.” Faust and Tiger — soldiers who take part in the reenactment of medieval battles — walked one after another along the podium. They managed, not without difficulty, to squeeze under the ring ropes in full armor and began to fight. The audience heard the clang of sword against shield and iron plate. “It looks like they're so clumsy, but in reality all this gear is insanely heavy on them; I can't imagine how they move like that,” one of the spectators commented. The fight ended quickly: one of the participants fell to his knee and adjusted his slipped visor, after which Teren declared it over. Several pairs of “knights” took turns, and then fighters with prostheses instead of legs came out onto the podium. The audience, which had been loudly coaching the participants on how best to fight, fell silent. The fight ended with a knockdown: one of the soldiers took a hit and fell flat on his back. The referee asked him several times whether he was ready to continue; the man nodded uncertainly, and then refused. He went to his corner, where an ice pack was applied to the back of his head, and he left the ring to general applause. Grot noted that the league regularly features fighters with amputations, including high ones, and that the main problem remains finding opponents: “It's harder to find them an opponent, because not that many people with amputations train.”
Contradictory Data
In the sources provided for fact-checking, a geographical inconsistency has been recorded. The main text and the RBC.ua material (source ID 1) clearly point to Kyiv: the barge “Perla Nera,” the river terminal, Poshtova Square. At the same time, source ID 2 (ukranews.com) reports in its headline that the M13 FIGHTS tournament “took place in Khmelnytskyi” and “opened the season.” Two explanations are possible: either the two are different events of the same league (the season opener in Khmelnytskyi and a separate barge tournament in Kyiv), or the ukranews.com headline contains an editorial error. Khmelnytskyi is not mentioned in the main source's text or in Grot's quotes, and all the details (Poshtova Square, the river terminal, the barge) point exclusively to Kyiv. Until an official comment from the league is received, the question of geography remains open.
The Meaning the League Carries
Every fight on the barge ended with a handshake and words of thanks between the opponents. One of the participants, after his victory, said: “Last time it was a defeat. Today it's a win. I prepared, my friends helped. They set me up, warmed me up. We made a fight plan, and I stuck to it.” The M13 FIGHTS format — bare-knuckle fights between soldiers, including those with amputations — continues to develop as an independent sporting and media phenomenon. The pirate theme, according to Grot's promise, will not be limited to a single event: water and the ship will become a permanent element of the league's visual language. And the barge “Perla Nera” on Poshtova Square, where on the twilight of September 5 not a single alert sounded over the ring, became, perhaps, the most unexpected “window” for a mass event in Kyiv this summer.
