Ottawa Charge Signs Russian Olympians Shokhina & Kadirova

The Ottawa Charge has signed 2025 draft picks Anna Shokhina and Fanuza Kadirova to one-year Standard Player Agreements, the team announced on June 16th. The forwards are the first players from Russia to sign in the PWHL.

Shokhina, 28, and Kadirova, 27, are the second and third Russians to be drafted into the PWHL following Ilona Markova in 2024, although Markova never signed in the league.They've spent the last two seasons as teammates with Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg in the Zhenskaya Hockey League and won a league title with Dynamo together in 2024. They've both represented Russia on the biggest international stages throughout their careers, including at the Olympics.

"We had Anna Shokhina ranked very high on our talent chart at the draft, so to be able to get her with the 13th pick was exciting for us," said Ottawa general manager Mike Hirschfield in the team's press release. "Fanuza Kadirova is also a talented and skilled goal scorer. She’s going to need to deal with the physicality in this league. It’s going to be a learning curve for her, but we think the upside is high."

What will be interesting to observe is whether or not the PWHL will choose to shield Shokhina and Kadirova from questions regarding Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. As we saw last year in the case of Minnesota Frost forward Britta Curl-Salemme's well-documented transphobia, the league can and will protect players from media scrutiny as they see fit. Time will tell how the PWHL opts to navigate this situation.