Kyiv's Budyivnyk held an open training session ahead of the start of the new 2026/2027 basketball season. The team, which won both the championship and the Ukrainian Cup in the previous campaign, is preparing to defend both titles. One of the most experienced players in the squad is 30-year-old guard Vita Horobets, who took part in a blitz interview with Sport RBC.UA, answering questions about sport, her career, and her personal life.
Summer between training and the kids
When asked how she would describe her summer in the format of a school essay titled “How I Spent My Summer,” but with a basketball twist, Horobets answered with utmost brevity: “Kids, training, training, kids.” This short formula reflects the typical rhythm of a professional athlete's life, balancing motherhood with season preparation. At the same time, when asked about the current stage of her career, the guard admitted that she finds herself more in the search for something new than in the harmony of stability: “There is stability, but it's still a search for something new.”
The path from Tim-SKUF to the golden double
Almost Horobets's entire playing career has been tied to Kyiv-based teams. From 2012 to 2014 she played for Tim-SKUF, and in 2017 she moved to Kyiv-Basket, for which she played until 2020. This was followed by a transfer to Prometey. With the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Vita once again became a player for Kyiv-Basket, representing the club until 2025. It was in 2025 that she joined Budyivnyk, with whom she completed the golden double last season — the championship and the Ukrainian Cup.
“Women are scary in this sense”
Talking about the changes in women's basketball since the start of her career, Horobets noted that the level of young players has become entirely different, and that basketball itself has changed significantly. Among the trends that simultaneously attract and slightly frighten her, she highlighted a more cunning style of play and increased intensity: “More fighting, right down to blood. Women — they are scary in this sense. With men you can see more of some kind of classic, technical play. But women fight, and they do it hard.” As an example of emotional play, she cited one of the recent matches for the Ukrainian national team, in which the team defeated Lithuania.
The toughest opponent and the statistics
Among the many strong European teams Horobets has faced in European competitions, she named the Turkish club Cukurova as the toughest. At the end of last season with Budyivnyk, the guard played 20 matches, averaging 9.6 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. When asked about her own satisfaction with these numbers, she answered philosophically: “You always want to do better. I have never chased statistics; team play has always been my priority. On the court I cover a lot of negatives that are not always visible. So if there is a win, then the statistics are not the main thing for me.”
Ukraine national team: 42 matches and 6.5 points on average
In the Ukrainian national team, Vita Horobets has played 42 matches, averaging 6.5 points per game. She also has 7 caps for the U-18 youth team. Thus, heading into the new 2026/2027 season, the guard arrives with a wealth of experience at both the club and international levels, continuing to be one of the key links for Budyivnyk in the fight to defend the championship title and the cup.
