Spartak Kyiv

Spartak Kyiv's men's side now competes in the Ukrainian Men's Handball Super League, playing out of the BVUFK Sport Palace in Brovary, a hall that seats around 550. Vadim Brazhnik, who also heads the Ukrainian national team, took over as head coach in August 2026.

That dominance belonged to the women, not the men. Founded in 1962 by Ihor Turchin, Spartak built a team that won the Soviet Championship every year from 1969 to 1988 — twenty titles in a row — and took the European Champions Cup thirteen times in the same stretch. Turchin coached both the club and the Soviet national side to Olympic gold in 1976 and 1980; his wife, Zinaida Turchyna, later ran the club as president. Independence brought three more Ukrainian Super League titles, in 1992, 1996 and 2000, and a run to the EHF Cup Winners' Cup final in 2003. None of it lasted: financial trouble ended the women's team's top-flight career in 2019.

What survives carries the Spartak name and its red-and-white colours into a much smaller arena, literally — 550 seats is a fraction of what the club once filled for European finals. HC Motor Zaporizhzhia stands as the closest thing to a modern rival, though the distance between the cities has kept it from becoming a fixed derby.