Vitaliy Botnar

Vitaliy Botnar was born in Bălți and made his way into Russian football through the Lokomotiv Moscow academy, where he spent several youth seasons after starting out at Sokol in Moscow. He stayed inside Lokomotiv's system into 2019, when he made a single professional appearance for the club's farm side, Lokomotiv-Kazanka, in the Second League.

His career took shape at Torpedo Moscow, where he moved in February 2020 and turned into a regular starter, making 65 league appearances. He was part of the Torpedo side that won the First Division in the 2021/22 season and went up to the Russian Premier League. He joined Pari Nizhny Novgorod in 2023, making no league appearances and only four cup outings, and by February 2024 he was back at Torpedo, adding 22 more league appearances before the club finished as runners-up in the 2024/25 season.

Botnar has represented Russia at youth level, from the U16s through to the U19s, and was called up to the U21 squad in 2021, though he has not made a competitive appearance at that level. Despite being born in Moldova, he has not featured for that country's national side.

In September 2025 he signed a two-year contract with SKA-Khabarovsk. He returned to SKA-Khabarovsk in June 2026 after a loan to Irtysh Pavlodar in Kazakhstan, where he made 14 appearances.