On 16 May 2017 it was confirmed that Povetkin would return to the ring on 1 July in Moscow. In a statement, Povetkin said: "I do not care with who I fight with. I'm sure my team will pick me a good interesting opponent, with whom we will have a spectacular fight. My job is to train and show good boxing ability. I'm ready to fight against any opponent." His promoter, Andrei Ryabinsky was in talks with several candidates. On 24 May, it was announced that Povetkin would fight Andriy Rudenko (31-2, 19 KOs), who was ranked 9th by the WBO; and 13th by the WBC and IBF. The fight was being billed as a "Battle of Russia vs. Ukraine", despite the fact that Rudenko was relatively unknown in Ukraine, where the fight was featured on rather smaller TV channel XSPORT instead of Inter. Rudenko was on a seven-fight winning streak following back-to-back losses to Lucas Browne and Hughie Fury. On 14 June, the WBO decided to sanction the bout and announced that the vacant WBO International heavyweight title would be at stake.